Source: John Kisner, “Firing Line,” Fire & Movement #81, July–August 1992, pp. 4, 55–56.

Counter-exhibit: Zone of Control #1 (Winter 1995) and #4 (Autumn 1995), John W. Kisner, editor & publisher. All quotations read off the page images 2026-08-31 — see the verification log.

The quote

“Conventional wisdom blames a falling standard of literacy for the erosion of our ranks: it’s easier for the flabby mind of our nation’s youth to play Nintendo or computer games. I’m not sure I buy that argument any more. What I now suspect happened was the tyranny of the feedback system broke the hobby’s back.”

John Kisner, Fire & Movement #81, July–August 1992, page 55. His first issue as editor.

Fire & Movement #81, p.55 — the passage the piece is about.

What he was arguing

Page 4 of that issue is the part everyone would quote. It is a four-point manifesto for how wargame reviewing ought to work, and it opens like a man who has thought about it:

“I’m the new editor of Fire & Movement, and I am very serious about its subtitle, The Forum of Conflict Simulation… All evidence points to increasing numbers of gamers living in isolation from fellow hobbyists, and playing the bulk of their games alone. If your wargaming circle has grown smaller over the years (like mine has), I think you’ll agree that the need for this forum is more pronounced than ever.”

Solo play, in 1992, already the norm and already deciding what a magazine was for. Then the four points, verbatim:

Fire & Movement #81 (July–August 1992), p.4 — John Kisner’s first Firing Line.

1. Multiple Points of View. More than one opinion per review, each writer restricted to “a particular vantage point” — strategy, realism, game theory, or entertainment.

2. Fresh Points of View. “I don’t want the same person to review every ASL module or Europa game.”

3. More Comparative Reviews. Sidebars printed alongside a Profile, setting an older game against the new one.

4. More Designer’s Responses. Space held open for the designer to answer — “not necessarily good news for writers (myself included), but I think it is both fair.”

He was not theorising. Point 4 gets tested fifty pages later in the same issue, in Crossfire, where Douglas Niles is furious about a review of WWII: Pacific Theater of Operations:

“Now you run a product through the buzz saw, but give no space for rebuttal?”

Kisner’s reply is printed directly underneath, in italics, and it is the best thing in the issue:

“Ouch! My first issue as editor, and already an angry letter from a designer. Actually, I couldn’t be happier.”

Crossfire, F&M #81 p.54 — Douglas Niles, and the reply underneath.

But the four points are only the front half of the column. Turn to page 55 and the argument changes altogether. He stops talking about reviewing and starts talking about what he thinks actually has slowed or killed the hobby’s growth and it isn’t computers, and it is not complexity.

The feedback card is the murderer of wargaming!.

“The feedback card is not unlike the caucus system used in my home state of Iowa. Although it purports to be democracy in its purest form, in actuality it is nothing of the kind. The skewed population that shows up on a cold evening in January to talk politics is not unlike the group of gamers which goes to the effort of sending in feedback. Like good politicians, wargame companies pander to the loudest interest groups.”

That is a real argument and nobody makes it any more. When was the last time we had the opportunity let alone the notion to send in or want to send in a feedback card?

The people who were filling in the card are not the entirety of the readership; they are the readership’s most committed small percentage. Perhaps a tenth, and they want what committed tenths always want. We want: “something more, something different, and something complex.” Publishers read the card as the market desire and build for the tenth.

Then he names the second strain, and this is the one that has aged really well into a prophecy:

“Game companies and designers carefully study the auguries of the ‘era preference’ polls in Strategy & Tactics and Command magazines, and temper their future projects accordingly. A related infection causes publishers to dabble in alchemy, hoping to hit upon the equation allowing them to duplicate the popularity of games such as Axis & Allies. They end up copying the form of earlier successes without understanding that what made these games popular was the one element of the creative process that cannot be measured or weighed: inspiration.”

Era preference polls. Copying the shape of the last hit without understanding why it was a hit. “Leopard-like designers changing spots from one poll to the next.” Written in 1992 about postcards, and it describes a Kickstarter chart, a BGG hotness list and a designers 17^th ‘What -If’ game without changing a word.

His conclusion is four words long: “War does not follow rules; neither should game companies.”

What happened next

He left for personal reasons, and then John went on to build the magazine he thought the hobby needed. By the way what a bold undertaking in those days! With large magazines already well established – F&M was 81 issues deep, the General had been going for ever and the market was continuing to change as we will see.

Zone of Control — “The Voice of American Wargaming” — issue #1, Winter 1995, John W. Kisner as editor and publisher, printed in Des Moines, Iowa. Quarterly, $18 a year, 3¢ a word to writers. And the masthead is the story: instead of a staff box it runs four era desks — Pre-Gunpowder, Gunpowder, World Wars, Contemporary — with named editors on each. Point 2, from the above institutionalised. He also invited the contributor base to join him: ten of the nineteen contributors named on the F&M #81 masthead appear on the ZoC #1 masthead, Rick Swan, Terry Rooker, Mark Pitcavage, Dave Mignerey and the Lawsons among them.

Zone of Control #1, Winter 1995, p.1 — the counter-exhibit: four era desks in place of a staff box.

Issue #1 carries nineteen reviews by fifteen named writers. By #4, Autumn 1995, the structure has hardened: twenty-one reviews and essays, sidebars indented underneath their parent reviews on the contents page, a letters column called Vox Americana, and — on pages 8 to 13 — Alexander’s Generals reviewed by Rick Swan, Alexander (Deluxe Edition) reviewed by Rick D. Stuart, and an essay, “Tracing the Noble Dust of Alexander,” running behind both. Two games on one subject, two reviewers, one essay, six consecutive pages. That is point 3, delivered, and it is exactly the thing a magazine was supposed to be too poor to do.

And Rick Swan opens his by comparing Alexander’s Generals to a pot of leftovers boiled in tomato juice, concluding the game has “about as much personality as a bag of gravel.” Nobody’s punches were pulled. This is interesting as I ponder BigBoard Gaming content. The Side by Side game plays of two related titles, or across era design compares and my latest Compare-Contrast series [Jena 1806] among others, tells me a couple of things. Chief among them – There is nothing new under the sun!

Then the part that is interesting. Kisner plucks a notion that he previously discredited out of other publications and gave it premier space in ZoC. Having called the feedback card a virus in 1992, here is Kisner in the ZoC #1 editorial, three years later:

“subscribers will be sent a special feedback packet once a year. The data processed from returned forms will be used to present a modified G.D.A. rating chart in our summer issue.”

He built a feedback system.

SPI published its feedback. From the early seventies FEEDBACK was a standing numbered department in Strategy & Tactics, printed alongside the games reader ratings, article scores, demographic breakdowns, and the method itself laid out in the open. S&T #23, on how the chart was made:

“The results of the FEEDBACK (a 100 unit random sample) are punched onto 80 column Hollerith cards and then run through a simple sort program. The resulting printout is translated onto the FEEDBACK chart or into the Outgoing Mail text.”

That is a publisher showing its working, in 1970. Kisner knew it as there is no doubt he was a subscriber (weren’t we all 😊 ), and he mourned the loss of the department’s old strapline: “Years ago S&T’s traditional feedback motto vox populi, vox dei was dropped without explanation… As our hobby has matured, the people have been disfranchised, and it is high time they are heard from again.” He then named his own letters column Vox Americana.

So his complaint about the virus was what publishers did with the data once they had it. Which means the reading of ZoC #1 is not that he found a cleverer kind of feedback it is that he built one anyway, knowing exactly what he thought of them, because you cannot run a magazine blind with no feedback loop. Just like a website or newsletter relies on opens, click thru rates and time on page. He changed the cadence and the sample to annual, from paying subscribers, rather than a card in every issue and left the underlying issue alone, as he was not publishing games. Yet.

The same editorial has the other thing nobody expects to find in 1995 a disclosed conflict-of-interest policy on review copies:

“I’ve taken steps to keep a certain distance from game manufacturers. Chief among them is my policy of giving advertising credit to publishers for the pair of review copies that they typically provide of each new title.”

It didn’t save him from the accusation. By ZoC #6, Spring 1996, a reader is in Vox Americana saying the quiet part: “Some very lousy games have been reviewed in ZOC but your reviewers never seem to find a way to tell it like it is and to save our money.” This does not allow for the fact that we all have different tastes. Its noteworthy that Youtube channels legally must now disclose promotional content. You receive a free game we are obligated to let you know that in the review. I do not have advertising, but I still disclose all review copies and or discounts from publishers.

And the ending. By 1997, Zone of Control is not an independent magazine any more. It is a section > “Zone of Control, Boardgame Review Section, ed. by John Kisner” — inside The General, the house organ of Avalon Hill, a company whose games he had spent five years reviewing. The G.D.A. scoring rubric came with it, printed in full in Avalon Hill’s pages. So did the contributor list.

And The General’s feedback results for the issue it debuted in, printed in Vol. 32 No. 1:

“Volume 31, Number 5 introduced two new features, the Zone of Control section and the Up Periscope column… it was the boardgame reviews which pleased the most, to the point that many readers listed the whole section as one of the top three articles in the issue.”

John was the head Honcho for OCS longer than I can recall. He is now branching out once again. – Clossus Reborn is going to be a new series of wargames. I am excited for him.

Zone of Control section — 200 points. Top of the card.

Fire & Movement #81, p.55 — Crossfire ends, Firing Line resumes under the black bar.

The man who wrote that the tyranny of the feedback system broke the hobby’s back finished first on Avalon Hill’s feedback card. Then The General folded, and the thing had nowhere left to go.

The same argument today but with the count

Here is where the old draft of this piece went wrong, and our own data is what corrects it.

The comfortable modern reading is that Kisner was right and merely broke under cost pressures; that the four points were unaffordable in a six-issue-a-year magazine paying $25 a page, and that YouTube and a comments section now do all four for nothing. It’s a nice line. It is also false. I know because I count this every week.

Seven issues of the WARNO roundup, 20 July to 29 August 2026: 497 videos, 45 channels, 70 identifiable games.

Kisner’s point 1 and point 2 reduce to one testable question — did more than one person weigh in on the same game? So:

· In the same week, 16 of 173 game-weeks got coverage from more than one channel. 9.2%. For every game the hobby looked at twice in a week, ten got exactly one voice. Now lets also note the we can assume more voices will cover ‘the same’ title over time. We all have different play schedules. I’m a fast to table, other wise it gets lost in the pile type of player. That 9% is also not reviews. Its more of Social media folks putting the game on the table.

· Pooled across the entire seven weeks — the most generous reading available — 24 of 70 games had two or more distinct channels featuring game play. 34.3%. Once again, it’s a time weighted exercise.

· Only one game got a ‘review’ by more than one channel across the seven weeks of WARNO and that was Tarawa ’43.

Today the gatekeeper is gone. The page rate is gone. The page count is gone. Every constraint Kisner named as the reason he couldn’t do it has been removed — and the hobby would appear on the surface to produce less multiplicity of viewpoints per game than a quarterly magazine run out of a house in Des Moines by one man paying 3¢ a word.

Which, is why I will have the WARNO – Warning Order issues start to track just that, and bring them together for you, so we can all read multiple views on the same games when they appear. The four points have stood the test of time.

1. Multiple Points of View. More than one opinion per review.

2. Fresh Points of View. More voices.

3. More Comparative Reviews. Sidebars printed alongside a Profile, setting an older game against the new one.

4. More Designer’s Responses. Space held open for the designer to answer.

The verdict

John was right about the disease and wrong about the cure. The counter point here is that less companies do feedback cards, but they do seek player opinion out online still. Does that mute inspiration? I do not think it does as much as John thought way back then. The Innovation in our little hobby, has continued, unabated, expanded and grown in the hobby. Just not how someone in it from the 1990’s might think.

All those feedback cards. Maybe they directed game development to certain eras. But did they make good games? – That is what matters to me.

The ZoC magazine perhaps never got two writers to cover the same game, or pulled all the designers in to ‘battle’ opinion. But it made a good effort at it. Today over time we will see more than one review per game by different faces, and we have a plethora of voices, on youtube and in blogs and the remnant magazines. Editors barely exist anymore. Today it is live stream of a handful of players talking through what they like or dislike. It s podcasts like Advance After combat where three blokes sit for a few hours and a few beers and share their opinions on games. This casual approach, generates the content, John wanted to achieve, and it does it for free and generally at a pretty decent quality level.

Almost Prove me Wrong

“When did you last watch a wargame get a bad review? Name one that isn’t me.”

Source note: John Kisner, “Firing Line,” Fire & Movement #81 (July–August 1992), pp. 4, 55–56; Douglas Niles letter and Kisner’s reply, “Crossfire,” same issue, p. 54; Richard H. Berg letter and reply, p. 55. Zone of Control #1 (Winter 1995), masthead p. 1, contents p. 2, “Wargamer’s Almanac” p. 4; #4 (Autumn 1995), contents p. 3, reviews pp. 8–13; #6 (Spring 1996), “Vox Americana” p. 6 — all John W. Kisner, editor & publisher, Zone of Control Inc., Des Moines IA (ISSN 1079-7556). The General (Avalon Hill) Vol. 31 No. 6 and Vol. 32 No. 1 contents pages and ZoC section mastheads; feedback results, Vol. 32 No. 1. SPI’s published feedback: Strategy & Tactics FEEDBACK department, standing from the early 1970s — method quoted from #23, results from #22, #24 and #28; “Vox Populi, Vox Dei” as the INCOMING MAIL strapline, #24 contents. Modern figures from the BigBoard WARNO corpus, issues 01–07, 20 July – 29 August 2026.

THE SITUATION

66% of the week’s coverage was somebody playing a game on camera — the highest in seven issues, and this time it isn’t one channel carrying it.

Last week’s 58% leaned heavily on a single arrival posting ten long play videos [stud!]. Strip that out and the week was 52%. This week the load is spread: Calandale on eight, Bill Needels on seven, Sons of Liberty 75 on six, Aaron Plays and Gaming with ER Bickford on four apiece, and nineteen channels in total putting something on the table. Add the reviews written by people who had actually played the game they were discussing, and 73% of this week’s coverage came from someone with table time behind it.

THE SITUATION — coverage type

Berlin had a week, and the same idea turned up twice. Three Berlin titles surfaced in seven days: Moe’s Game Table previewed Legion’s Fall of Berlin, The Boardgames Chronicle reviewed Race to Berlin: Second Edition from Portal Games, and Race for Berlin from Battles magazine has been on my table [last week itr was Fall of berlin].

Those last two are one letter apart and not the same game — different designers, different scales, a decade between them.

They do share a mechanism, and neither took it from the other. In the Battles game each player commands one Soviet marshal and the German units facing the other marshal. In Portal’s, each player takes one of the Allied forces and the German armies standing in front of their opposite number — the Western Allied player moves the Germans in the East, the Soviet player moves the Germans in the West. Two designers, the same weeks of history, the same answer: hand each player their rival’s opposition and let the race do the work.

Fall of Berlin prints the front boundary on its map and leaves it inert, because one player runs both fronts. Three designs, one campaign, and two of them found the race the third only drew.

[Note, I am uncertain that Race to Berlin is a wargame. But it does reference ‘combat’]

A designer push showed up in the data before it showed up anywhere else. An interview with Nick Roser, designer of the Line of Battle series, was co-streamed across three channels on the same night — Camp Sawyer, Hex to Hex and WARdROBE — with WARdROBE also posting its own separate sit-down with him. Four listings, three channels, one evening. And it worked: Hex to Hex opened his No Turning Back video the next day saying he was “incentivized by the interview we did with Nick Roser last night,” and pointed viewers at the Inferno in the Bluegrass pre-order. That is the whole chain visible in one week — interview, enthusiasm, table, pre-order link.

And the livestream numbers keep saying something the item counts don’t. Twelve finished broadcasts this week were 14% of what the roster posted and 24% of the hours it posted — 15.3 of 63. A chart that counts videos reads this week one way. A chart that counts minutes reads it another. Two issues of stream data in and that gap has held both times.

FORMAT — what the week looked like by shape

SIGNAL — Under the Radar

Small channels worth your time. Chosen on merit, not view count.

Category Solo — CENTCOM Persian Gulf War 2001–2003, Review & Impressions Fifteen views, and it is the most useful review of the week. A proper post-play verdict on the Strategy & Tactics #357 solitaire game covering Afghanistan and Iraq after 9/11. He is good on what makes it work: everything on the map starts as face-down mystery markers, so you are attacking blind and spending expeditionary warfare points to buy reconnaissance, forces and the rolling attacks that let a stack keep going as long as you can pay. He is also honest about where the rules are thin and the designer’s notes have to carry the intent. Ends by facing the obvious objection — that some people won’t play a game on events this recent — and answers it by saying the game paired with the magazine article taught him the campaign. Watch

My Own Worst Enemy — And The War Came, Part 5 Spring 1862, and a genuinely clear demonstration of how the game’s resource economy drives the war. Two cards a turn now, resource points rolled and spent in front of you — ten points of infantry, a fort, and an army artillery reserve that lifts a unit’s combat rating by one. Unhurried, well explained, and the kind of video that teaches a system rather than just showing it. Watch

Patrick’s Tactics & Tutorials — Roads to Gettysburg II, Scenario 3 A solo run at the scenario that was number four in Avalon Hill’s original Roads to Gettysburg, with a nice aside on what it says about the early 1990s that a boxed game shipped with two solo scenarios in it. Useful comparison of the old scenario against the reprint’s retooling. Watch

Bill Needels (Punched) — Italy ’43: Across the Volturno, An Unexpected Finale The close of a seven-turn run at Simonitch’s Italy ’43, with the weather turning to mud at exactly the right moment for the Germans. Good on the shape of the campaign — 26th Panzer withdrawn, a German mission that is purely delay while the Bernhard and Gustav lines are built off-camera, and the grind that made a landing at Anzio look necessary. A single counter sheet, oversized hexes, and a scenario he reckons plays in an evening. Watch

MISSION — Video: the threads worth pulling

Zilla Blitz — Midway Solitaire, Full Playthrough · 12,037 views Comfortably the most-watched video of the week. Worthington’s travel-sized solitaire Midway, played end to end in under half an hour: US task forces move one square a turn, a card deck drives the Japanese, and combat is a dice-check against a damage total — ten hits to break the carrier strike force. He wins for the first time after several attempts, and the run comes out looking very like the historical battle, with a mauled first wave and a second attack that finishes the job. His summary is the useful part — it is hard to win, and it tells a good story either way. Watch

Everyones posts by week.

Matt White Wargames — Do I need another Waterloo game? · 5,324 views A used copy of Ligny & Waterloo 1815 from the Jours de Gloire series, bought off BoardGameGeek and gone through component by component. The series traces back to a Richard Berg design, since expanded by Frédéric Bey across some thirty battles. Everything is bilingual — twelve pages of rules in English, the same twelve in French printed on the reverse. The publisher rates it eight out of ten for complexity; he would call it medium, maybe the upper half of medium. Chit-pull activation, which he notes lends itself to solo play. Watch

The Players’ Aid — Monthly Debrief, July 2026 · 4,913 views The July round-up, running late and covering a heavy month including WBC. Among the plays, Trying Men’s Souls from Against the Odds — a campaign-scale treatment of New York rather than a single battle, which they single out as an unusual angle on the American Revolution, and a rough ride if you take the Patriots. Watch

Hexed And Countered — August 2026 New Wargame Arrivals · 3,578 views A useful sweep of what actually landed this month. Sensuikan from Compass, reprinted and in the same family as The Hunters and Silent Victory, with seventeen submarine classes and fifteen to twenty minutes a patrol. Cuius Regio from GMT, covering the whole Thirty Years War across five intervention scenarios plus a full campaign, rated six for solitaire suitability. And Close Quarter Battles: Waterloo from Lock and Load, which takes a much-covered operational subject down to five minutes a turn and twenty-five metres a hex, focused on Hougoumont and La Haye Sainte. Watch

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Wayne Hansen — Tarawa 1943 Solitaire, 2nd Edition · 1,399 views A full playthrough plus mini-review of Worthington’s travel-sized reissue of the Wylie design, landing the Marines across Red Beaches 1 to 3. He has covered the original full-size edition on the channel, and is clear that the gameplay is much the same in a smaller, slightly streamlined package — with more to it than most of the travel series. Not an easy game, but winnable; he took his last attempt before filming. Watch

Moe’s Game Table — Drive on Voronezh preview · 800 views Legion Wargames’ ziplock treatment of the June–July 1942 drive on Voronezh, designed by John Theisson, and part of a run of Eastern Front titles with more to come. Twelve pages of rules, a 22-by-22 inch map that is mostly clear terrain and railway, and a three-division-plus stacking limit. The mechanism worth knowing about is ZOC bonds rather than conventional zones of control, plus four separate movement types including exploitation. He puts it at two to four hours — one evening, possibly two plays. Watch

ASL Academy — Alternative Bypass LOS · 649 views Eight minutes on a single clause most players forget. When firing at a unit moving in bypass, you are not restricted to tracing line of sight to the vertices — A4.34 also lets you trace to the hex centre dot, provided the line crosses a bypassed hex side. He builds a case where every vertex is blocked and the centre dot is the only shot on the board. Rare, situational, and exactly the sort of thing that decides a scenario’s last turn. Watch

Who played?

Hex to Hex — No Turning Back, Scenario 6.5 · 481 views Wright’s attack at the Wilderness, set up under the Line of Battle orders system — a frontal assault into Johnson’s breastworks with a brigade held in reserve, where keeping it back buys a modifier on the fluke-stoppage roll each turn. Good on how the orders constrain you: the Confederate main line cannot advance beyond its breastworks, skirmishers can push three hexes out, and the Union has essentially no manoeuvre option. Seventeen turns from 3:30 to 7:45. Watch

WARdROBE — No Easy Ground rulebook and counters · 395 views A look at Second Escape Games’ rework of Iron Cross, fourteen years on, with nineteen documented changes listed on the publisher’s site. Ninety-six pages, but large type and plenty of pictures over what is still a simple rule set. An interview with Daryl Morton is promised for late September. Watch

NEW FROM BIGBOARD

The Line Stalin Erased — 29 August Before playing Race for Berlin: what the design promises, and what I said I would be watching for. Written from the rulebook on 20 August before the first counter moved, and published unedited so the review can be scored against it. The hook is the history — Stalin drew the boundary between Zhukov’s and Koniev’s fronts only as far as the approaches, then erased it near Berlin on 17 April and left the capital to whoever got there first, telling Koniev and not Zhukov. I also just dropped a review of the game on the blog. - You know where it is !

Delete the war and see what’s left — 24 August The reply on what counts as a wargame, and the two-stage test behind it.

And it drew a response: Wargaming Weekly #082 this week is “ten reflections on BigBoard Gaming’s response to my response to his critique.” Linked below.

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MISSION — BLOG: Featured Posts

The Players’ Aid — Discussion Thread: Zones of Control, how important are they to you? The second in a new discussion-thread feature, and a good question — ZOCs are one of those conventions most of us stopped examining a long time ago. Timely alongside Moe’s preview above, where Drive on Voronezh uses ZOC bonds rather than the standard treatment.

The Boardgames Chronicle — Race to Berlin: Second Edition, full review Portal Games’ two-player Dytczak design, December 1944 to May 1945. The first edition appeared in 2015; a decade on, this is a rework rather than a reprint. Billed as Portal’s first wargame — see the note above on what it actually asks the player to do.

A Wargamers Needful Things — Cuius Regio: The Thirty Years War On the GMT title, with the designer’s own account of the problem: a war that lasted thirty years, involved most of Europe, and was really a collection of separate conflicts.

The Players’ Aid — Interview with Gregory M. Smith The designer of Viking Dawn, and of a long run of solo narrative-driven games — including Sensuikan, which turns up twice in the video roundup this week.

Wargaming Weekly — #082: Is business wargaming an oxymoron? The continuation of the definition argument, responding directly to BigBoard’s piece.

Grymauch’s Solo Wargaming Blog — A Blog Update Worth reading, and not about a game. A reappraisal of how much time can go to the hobby, written plainly: “my aging body is serving as a reminder that I will not be able to wargame in perpetuity.”

SUSTAINMENT — The Full Roundup

Alphabetical by channel within each period. No view ranking.

Ancient — 6

BigBoard on Ancients: bigboardgaming.com/tag/ancient

· Chariot Lords 1 — Calandale · 311 views · 70 min

· Chariot Lords 2 — Calandale · 185 views · 69 min

· Chariot Lords 3 — Calandale · 385 views · 79 min

· Chariot Lords 4 — Calandale · 312 views · 107 min

· Chariot Lords 5 & wrap — Calandale · 186 views · 86 min

· Chariot Lords review — Calandale · 381 views · 24 min

Napoleonic — 6

BigBoard on Napoleonic: 143 posts in the archive

· THE EAGLES RETURN — Revisiting My Eagles of France Playthrough — Aaron Plays · 164 views · 5 min

· Do I need another Waterloo game? — Matt White Wargames · 5,324 views · 21 min

· Review — Bailén 1808, Trafalgar Editions — Matt White Wargames · 898 views · 24 min

· Santa Cruz 1797 Unboxing — Pushing Cardboard · 147 views · 12 min

· Albuera: COA vs Simulation Games, video 25 — Sons of Liberty 75 · 165 views · 133 min

· Albuera: COA turn 1220 and conclusion — Sons of Liberty 75 · 64 views · 99 min

ACW — 10

BigBoard on ACW: 77 posts in the archive

· 3DoG — A Want of Coordination 1 — Bill Needels (Punched) · 271 views · 45 min

· 3DoGD — Longstreet’s Assault, Peach Orchard and Little Round Top — Camp Sawyer · 542 views · 62 min

· Kernstown setup, solo playthrough — Cardboard Commander · 219 views · 2 min

· No Turning Back, Scenario 6.1 intro — Hex to Hex · 481 views · 8 min

· And The War Came Part 5 — My Own Worst Enemy · 287 views · 48 min

· Roads to Gettysburg II — Scenario 3 — Patrick’s Tactics & Tutorials · 260 views · 32 min

· A Greater Victory: South Mountain, video 7 — Sons of Liberty 75 · 47 views · 89 min

· A Greater Victory: South Mountain, video 8 — Sons of Liberty 75 · 116 views · 78 min

· A Greater Victory: South Mountain, video 9 — Sons of Liberty 75 · 80 views · 63 min

· A Greater Victory: South Mountain, video 10 — Sons of Liberty 75 · 106 views · 103 min

WWI — 4

BigBoard on WWI: 34 posts in the archive

· Rally The Troops: Paths of Glory, with Doug from Battlefield Banter — Cardboard Commander · 245 views · 90 min

· World War I Deluxe Edition (Decision Games), gameplay part 1 — Hexed And Countered · 1,049 views · 59 min

· Sensuikan — first look and rules overview — Hexed And Countered · 702 views · 35 min

· Sustaining an offensive in winter, 1915 — Nangwaya · 94 views · 10 min

WWII — 23

BigBoard on WWII: 988 posts in the archive

· TAKEN! — Combat! Eastern Front, episode 18 — Aaron Plays · 104 views · 43 min

· BREAKTHROUGH! — Combat! Eastern Front, episode 17 — Aaron Plays · 66 views · 23 min

· Advanced Squad Leader — Alternative Bypass LOS — ASL Academy · 649 views · 8 min

· Italy ’43 — Turn 4 — Bill Needels (Punched) · 69 views · 18 min

· Italy ’43 — Turn 5 — Bill Needels (Punched) · 99 views · 24 min

· Italy ’43 — Turn 6, Struggling for VP — Bill Needels (Punched) · 222 views · 18 min

· Italy ’43 — Across the Volturno, An Unexpected Finale — Bill Needels (Punched) · 273 views · 25 min

· Panzer Battles — Turn 5 Activation 5 — Bill Needels (Punched) · 62 views · 7 min

· Panzer Battles T5A4 — Bill Needels (Punched) · 87 views · 16 min

· Guadalcanal (intro) — Hex to Hex · 407 views · 24 min

· Collectors Corner — Anzio: Operation Shingle — Meandering Mike · 152 views · 25 min

· Let’s Play Hill 253.5, German turn 1 — MMP Not Dead Yet · 386 views · 28 min

· Drive on Voronezh (Legion Wargames) preview — Moe’s Game Table · 800 views · 6 min

· Fall of Berlin (Legion Wargames) preview — Moe’s Game Table · 668 views · 7 min

· Guadalcanal Part 1: Setup & Turn 1 — Poultergeist Board Games · 487 views · 29 min

· Flying Fortress: B-17 Missions Over Europe, unboxing — The Discriminating Gamer · 965 views · 8 min

· No Easy Ground — rulebook and counters — WARdROBE · 395 views · 22 min

· No Easy Ground — Escalating Engagement, first game — WARdROBE · 361 views · 56 min

· Tarawa 1943 Solitaire (2nd Edition) — Wayne Hansen · 1,399 views · 64 min

· Midway Solitaire, full playthrough — Zilla Blitz · 12,037 views · 28 min

· Sensuikan — First Patrol, episode 1 — Zilla Blitz · 3,990 views · 25 min

Reichswehr Freikorps, S&T 273 — Gaming with ER Bickford · 45 views · 16 min

Cold War — 3

· Fields of Fire 2: Korea 1950 — Chosin Reservoir, mission 2 turn 3 — Aaron Plays · 70 views · 78 min

· THE VIET CONG WON’T BREAK — Fields of Fire Deluxe: Vietnam, episode 8 — Aaron Plays · 62 views · 66 min

· Vietnam Wargames — Monthly Debrief, July 2026 — The Players’ Aid · 4,913 views · 105 min

Contemporary — 1

· CENTCOM: Persian Gulf War 2001–2003, review and impressions — Category Solo · 15 views · 18 min

Beyond the era — colonial, magazines, podcasts, craft and non-historical — 12

· Asante Part 1 — Gaming with ER Bickford · 149 views · 14 min

· Asante Part 2 — Gaming with ER Bickford · 144 views · 15 min

· Asante Part 3 — Gaming with ER Bickford · 34 views · 15 min

· Fire & Movement 76 — Gaming with ER Bickford · 60 views · 4 min

· Operations Magazine 1 — Gaming with ER Bickford · 65 views · 11 min

· Operations Magazine 2 — Gaming with ER Bickford · 32 views · 14 min

· August 2026 New Wargame Arrivals — Hexed And Countered · 3,578 views · 20 min

· A life hack for wargame map terrain overlays — Line of Departure · 196 views · 10 min

· We’re Not Dead Yet, episode 50 — MMP Not Dead Yet · 1,340 views · 53 min

· How hex and counter combat works — Seek Out and Play · 517 views · 4 min

· “Why I Love Wargaming” — Speak Out & Play, August 2026 — Seek Out and Play · 140 views · 22 min

SUSTAINMENT — Live streams

Thirteen finished broadcasts, 15.3 hours. Where the same stream went out on several channels it is listed once per channel — several creators turning up to the same thing is itself the record.

Let’s Chat with Nick Roser — co-streamed across three channels, 124 minutes each: - Camp Sawyer · 92 views - Hex to Hex · 725 views - WARdROBE · 147 views - and separately, WARdROBE’s own interview with him · 113 views · 124 min

The rest: - Counter Clipping Ep283 — The Civil War in Wargaming, plus GMT news — Ardwulf’s Lair · 2,138 views · 97 min - THE CHIT SHOW — Shooting the Chit: Out Of Print Wargames — Ardwulf’s Lair · 1,105 views · 60 min - Zone Of Control, Episode 74 — Mark Herman — Cardboard Commander · 816 views · 58 min - Coffee & Counters — Cardboard Commander · 276 views · 30 min - Live Cardboard 39 — Flashback to 2000 — Pushing Cardboard · 602 views · 117 min - Whiskey Charlie, Episode 97 — End of Summer — Moe’s Game Table · 402 views · 57 min Whiskey Charlie, 25 August — TheGimpyGamer · 162 views · 56 min - Command Post Episode 17 — Rough Swordsman · 149 views - Command Post Episode 17 — Tony’s Board Life · 25 views

SUSTAINMENT — Blogs

The Players’ Aid — 5 - Video Review: Bravery in the Sand, in Operations #2 from MMP — Operation Crusader, 20 November to 3 December 1941 - Discussion Thread: Zones of Control - My Favorite Wargame Cards #91 — DoD Contractors, from Andean Abyss - Interview with Gregory M. Smith, designer of Viking Dawn - Video Review: The Struggle for Zorn, The Red Blight

The Boardgames Chronicle — 1 - Race to Berlin: Second Edition, full review

A Wargamers Needful Things — 1 - Cuius Regio: The Thirty Years War

Wargaming Weekly — 1 - #082: Is business wargaming an oxymoron?

Grymauch’s Solo Wargaming Blog — 1 - A Blog Update

Sgt Steiner’s Wargaming Blog — 1 - Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game, two scenarios played

Cardboard Commander — 1 - Hotel booking link fixed — Operation Cardboard Con 2027

PAXsims — 1 PAXsims covers the professional and analytical side of wargaming, which is why it sits in a hobby roundup. - DKI APCSS seeks an Associate Professor or Professor in Executive Decision Gaming and Analysis

WARNO gathers the week’s wargaming video and blog output from a fixed roster and reports it straight. Coverage type is classified automatically and audited weekly.

The genesis of the threads -

Wargaming Weekly popped this article out about “wargaming” with a financial hedge fund game, that to my mind was not a wargame.

To which I responded, and also I wrote about his ‘most important book on wargaming this year’ , just to clarify what - hobby vs professional wargaming is. But I keyed in on who the book was important to and what wargames were.

From that article:

“ Here’s where the superlative runs into trouble, and it isn’t Curry’s fault per se — more a ‘leading headline issue.’

The word “wargame” is being stretched, and the people stretching it are the professional side. In the issue immediately after the Curry review, the same newsletter covered Magnificent 7 — described, in its own words, as “a solitaire business wargame about building a resilient hedge fund in the face of China’s April 2025 export controls on 7 heavy rare earths.” Then a chat about Phil Sabin’s wargame.

Those two things are in the same newsletter under the same word.

Which promted a further discussion.

That brings us full cirle to the age old arguement about what is and is not a wargame.

So pen to paper off I went to do my best here to get the nouns right, and explain why they matter. Along the way, Catan, Monoloply, Fire in the Lake and Twilight struggle all get a mention.

But not in the same sentances…:)

#rolldice

This week WARNO started counting livestreams, and it turns out we have been missing about a third of the hobby.

Sixteen live broadcasts across the roster, twenty-four hours of them!!! YouTube files a finished stream on a separate tab from ordinary uploads, and until this issue we were only reading the ordinary one. So three channels that looked silent last week weren’t: Rough Swordsman, Hex to Hex and Armchair Dragoons all posted, at length, and none of it reached you. Cardboard Commander showed one video against three missed streams, one of them a full A Most Fearful Sacrifice play. – sorry chaps.

Counted properly, the week runs to 112 videos and 84 hours. Live is 14% of the items but about 29% of the hours. Add the recorded long-form and it tips over: videos of 45 minutes or more are a quarter of what gets posted and nearly half of what there is to watch. The hobby’s centre of gravity is much further into the long stuff than a list of titles suggests.

Played share came in at 58%, up from 47%. Treat that carefully. Sons of Liberty 75 joined the roster this week and posted ten long play videos on his own; strip him out and the week is 52%. The share moved because the roster did, not because anyone changed what they make.

The remaster is having a moment. Decision Games put two out at once — Napoleon At War Deluxe (3,374 views at The Players’ Aid) and World War I Deluxe (1,359 at Hexed And Countered), both reworks of much older titles. Meanwhile GMT’s Army of the Potomac got covered three times in seven days: a designer-assisted unboxing with Mark Herman at Ardwulf’s Lair, an unboxing at The Players’ Aid, and an unboxing-and-overview at The Boardgames Chronicle. Someone has a good marketing agent 😉 .
When three outlets open the same box in one week, that is a release push, not a coincidence useful to know which is which before you order.

Overall, I’m glad to see more long form play. Nice to see more gamers gaming. Less talk about playing and unboxings - #rolldice baby!

SIGNAL — Under the Radar

Sons of Liberty 75 — Albuera Battle Comparison: COA vs Simulation Games, Video 22: game flaws

Eighty-three views. Fifty-one minutes. It is the twenty-second video in a series comparing two published games of the same 1811 battle, and in this one Lee stops playing and goes to the sources.

The two games disagree about when Albuera starts. One opens at 10:00 with the reserves well back; the other doesn’t. So he opens Oman’s History of the Peninsular War, volume four, and reads out the marching times! SWEET!! Sure enough Cole’s division off at two in the morning, on the field by half past six, eleven miles covered, the tail of Soult’s column not closed up till seven or eight. Then he makes the argument: a three-and-a-half hour gap between the two scenarios’ start times is where all the divergence in the battle lines comes from.

Not happy with just that, he goes further. He thinks the designers let the Spanish army’s reputation set its morale ratings rather than its conduct at Albuera, where the Spanish held. He reads the passage that says so.

That is source-checking a published game on camera, for an audience of eighty-three. Nobody else on the roster is doing it. I love this. Well. I may do it on the odd occasion, but this one caught my eye. – Give this man a follow llads.

One side note here. This taps into my Compare-Contrast blog series that I started a little while ago. So much for me thinking I was being all cool and original! LOL.

83 views · 2 comments · 51 min · Napoleonic —

MISSION — Video: the threads worth pulling

· Guerre Eclair — Zilla Blitz’s overview took 3,989 views in seven minutes of runtime, the most-watched thing on the roster. Nuts! Publishing, designed by Yasushi Nakaguro: France 1940, point-to-point, block units, two card decks, hidden setup behind screens, under an hour. He rates it 2.5 out of 10 for complexity.

· Napoleon At War Deluxe — The Players’ Aid reviewed Decision’s remaster (3,374 views, 32 min). Four battles — Marengo, Jena, Leipzig, Wagram — about six pages of rules, an hour to three per battle. Grant and Alexander played Marengo through seven turns and got a result.

· Guadalcanal, and an 88-page rulebook that isn’t — Poultergeist Board Games’ first look at DVG’s Valiant Defense series entry (1,323 views). Henderson Field, 23–26 October 1942, one to three players, 60–90 minutes. Cooper and Johansson. The rulebook is 88 pages and the designer’s own advice is not to be alarmed by it — most is reference. I’m not saying a word..ahem…

· Pacific War 1942: Solitaire, second edition — Wayne Hansen’s full playthrough plus mini-review (1,028 views, 48 min). Worthington, States of Siege, and the change from the first edition is that the Japanese act off a card deck instead of a die roll.

· Not One Step Back: Stalingrad — The Players’ Aid ran a 90-minute solo playthrough (998 views). The most-watched actual play of the week.

· Coast Watchers — Wiseguy History’s gameplay overview of the GMT title (833 views, 34 min).

· ASL held its line. RSS Episode 55 — Star Leader at ASL Academy, 67 minutes; We’re Not Dead Yet Ep 49 from MMP ran 86 minutes on nationality rankings and pulled 32 comments, the most argued-over item of the week.

· WWI is having a good run — Hexed And Countered posted three: the World War I Deluxe first look, The Lamps are Going Out gameplay, and a six-favourites list of WWI solitaire games.

· The magazine corner — Gaming with ER Bickford read Fire & Movement 70 and 74, and Moves 100. I’m loving this. My Cross Fire series is trying to bring back discussion just like the days discussed here.

· A new series worth watching — The Tabletop’s Edge is starting one that pairs a game with the book to read alongside it. Two minutes of announcement so far, but that is a format almost nobody runs.

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(Full A–Z is in SUSTAINMENT below.)

NEW FROM BIGBOARD

· Fall of Berlin — Review / AAR — Legion Wargames, the Zhukov–Konev race for the city. The nine-turn frame and what it does to the German position.

· TCS: GD’42 Assault on Travino videos

· TCS: Arty GD’42

· Fall of Berlin — Combat! — 695 views:

· Fall of Berlin Review — 505 views, 14 min:

· Race for Berlin — niggles, bitches and missing tracks. Oh, and a Martini. — 175 views:

· Race for Berlin — Combat /1 and wording rules /2:

· Cuius Regio wrap /4 — 294 views:

· Played, Posted, Playing, Ordered! — the live catch-up, 25 min:

MISSION — BLOG: Featured Posts

· PAXsims — six posts, this week: a RAND study on AI in a future US–China conflict, a piece on Chinese wargaming, the MORS tactical-design course in November, and The Army Taught Me to Write Like AI, which will start an argument somewhere. Sixteen Games That Made Me a Wargamer is the one that will read easiest from where you are sitting. [Editorial note: PAXsims is the professional/serious wargaming source on this roster — policy, education and defence sims. It’s here for that.]

· The Players’ Aid — eight posts. Sykes-Picot from Hollandspiele (two players carving up the Ottoman Empire in red and blue ink), HISPANIA from Draco Ideas, and a Volko Ruhnke interview on Drachen: Reconnaissance at Verdun 1916.

· The Boardgames Chronicle — Cuius Regio unboxing and overview, and Army of the Potomac.

· Wargaming Weekly — #081: Am I stretching the definition of a wargame too far?! Rwizi Rweizooba Ainomugisha replies to our Important to whom? piece, and does it generously — no pushback at all on the book review, and he grants that “most important wargaming book of 2026” should have read professional wargaming book. Where he pushes back is the line itself: a kinetic test, he argues, throws out logistics, MEDEVAC, intelligence and cyber wargames along with the business ones. He calls it “bigger tent maxxing” and offers three requirements instead — one human player, decisions about military, political or business conflict, consequences over at least three turns. Seems like I started a thing. We need to have a fuller discussion and corrective chat with our lad here. Stay tuned. 😊

· Sgt Steiner’s — Battle Command: Jakubowo 1812.

· Grymauch’s — Pony Wars: The Homestead reached its conclusion over two posts.

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SUSTAINMENT — The Full Roundup

[ Political & Non wargame & PC game vids removed. ]

Ancient — 2

· Lone Boardsman — The Wars of Marcus Aurelius | Overview and Review · 183 views · 38 min

· Wayne Hansen — Let’s Play! Eagles of Rome I: Caesar | Battle of Zela 47 BC · 402 views · 76 min

Medieval — 1

· Justegarde — Crusade: Road to Jerusalem (Solo Wargame) · 335 views · 32 min

Napoleonic — 8

· Gaming with ER Bickford — Napoleon Overruns Piedmont Montenotte · 29 views · 26 min

· Matt White Wargames — On the Table — Bailén 1808 · 484 views · 9 min

· Pushing Cardboard — Battlefields of the Napoleonic Wars unboxing · 118 views · 14 min

· Sons of Liberty 75 — Albuera Battle Comparison, Video 21: SG turn 1200 and 1300 · 67 views · 74 min

· Sons of Liberty 75 — Albuera Battle Comparison, Video 22: game flaws · 83 views · 51 min

· Sons of Liberty 75 — Albuera Battle Comparison, Video 23: completion of the 1300 turn · 31 views · 43 min

· Sons of Liberty 75 — Albuera Battle Comparison, Video 24: turn 1400 · 24 views · 110 min

· The Players Aid — Review | Napoleon At War Deluxe | Decision Games · 3,374 views · 32 min

ACW — 8

· Ardwulf’s Lair — Designer-Assisted Unboxing | Army of the Potomac with Mark Herman (GMT 2026) · 799 views · 50 min

· Camp Sawyer — 3DoGD — Longstreet’s Assault, 17:00 turn: McLaws engages · 257 views · 31 min

· My Own Worst Enemy — And The War Came Part 4 · 130 views · 23 min

· Patrick’s Tactics & Tutorials — Roads to Gettysburg II — Scenario #2, Stuart Rides North, rematch · 139 views · 53 min

· Sons of Liberty 75 — A Greater Victory: South Mountain 1862, video 4, 0930 turn · 17 views · 84 min

· Sons of Liberty 75 — A Greater Victory: South Mountain, video 5, 1000 turn · 25 views · 81 min

· Sons of Liberty 75 — A Greater Victory: South Mountain, video 6, 1030 · 4 views · 65 min

· The Players Aid — Unboxing | Army of the Potomac | GMT Games · 1,660 views · 14 min

WWI — 7

· Calandale — Death in the Trenches — intro · 339 views · 175 min

· Calandale — Death in the Trenches — setup woes · 436 views · 62 min

· Hexed And Countered — World War I Deluxe Edition (Decision Games) | First Look & Rules Overview · 1,359 views · 27 min

· Hexed And Countered — The Lamps are Going Out (Compass Games) | Gameplay Part 1 · 406 views · 39 min

· Hexed And Countered — The 6: Favorite World War I Solitaire Games · 233 views · 7 min

· Nangwaya — The German 9th Army press on with Operation Mähen · 36 views · 13 min

· Nangwaya — Some of Frainz Mileric’s personal effects — 7th Corps, 4th Army, Austro-Hungarian Empire · 13 views · 10 min

WWII — 22

· Aaron Plays — COMMAND CONFUSION | Combat! Eastern Front | Episode 16 · 58 views · 32 min

· ASL Academy — Advanced Squad Leader RSS — Episode 55: Star Leader · 404 views · 67 min

· Bill Needels (Punched) — Italy ’43 — To the Bernhard Line Scenario · 110 views · 5 min

· Bill Needels (Punched) — Italy ’43 — Allies Advance (T1A) · 152 views · 8 min

· Bill Needels (Punched) — Italy ’43 — Turn 2 · 97 views · 22 min

· Bill Needels (Punched) — Italy ’43 — Turn 3 · 89 views · 15 min

· Bill Needels (Punched) — Panzer Battles (5A3) · 66 views · 39 min

· Cardboard Commander — Unboxing | Rommel In Italy / Battle of the Bismarck Sea — War Diary Publications · 159 views · 10 min

· Gaming with ER Bickford — Afrikakorps World at War 11 · 44 views · 15 min

· Gaming with ER Bickford — Battle for Moscow C3i 25 · 62 views · 18 min

· Hexed And Countered — First to Fight — Battle for Poland 1939 (Old School Tactical Vol. 5) | First Look · 330 views · 15 min

· Poultergeist Board Games — Guadalcanal by DVG Games | First Look at the Valiant Defense Series · 1,323 views · 18 min

· Pushing Cardboard — Victory in Normandy Unboxing · 261 views · 6 min

· Pushing Cardboard — 57 — Wes Crawford, Sam London, Stalingrad Roads · 16 views · 109 min

· The Discriminating Gamer — TDG: Old School Tactical: First to Fight, Poland 1939 unboxing · 518 views · 9 min

· The Discriminating Gamer — TDG: Sniper Elite: Escalation unboxing · 328 views · 6 min

· The Players Aid — Playthrough | Not One Step Back: Stalingrad | Solo Wargame · 998 views · 90 min

· WARdROBE — Baptism by Fire — Turn 5, 18th turn · 76 views · 2 min

· Wayne Hansen — Let’s Play! Pacific War 1942: Solitaire (2nd Edition) · 1,028 views · 48 min

· Wiseguy History — Coast Watchers | Gameplay overview (GMT Games 2026) · 833 views · 34 min

· Zilla Blitz — Guerre Eclair Overview | Nuts! Publishing · 3,989 views · 7 min

· Zilla Blitz — Sensuikan — Submarine School | Episode 0 | November 1941 · 3,063 views · 21 min

Cold War — 6

· Aaron Plays — FIRE MISSION! | Fields of Fire Deluxe: Vietnam | Episode 6 · 65 views · 56 min

· Aaron Plays — SGT. SAGE LEADS THE WAY | Fields of Fire Deluxe: Vietnam | Episode 7 · 37 views · 79 min

· Aaron Plays — FIELDS OF FIRE 2: Korea 1950 — Chosin Reservoir, Mission 2, Turn 2 · 17 views · 80 min

· Category Solo — The Forgotten War: Korea — Wargame Archaeology · 36 views · 17 min

· John Maag — Charlie’s Year Campaign — 1 · 120 views · 58 min

· The Players Aid — Unboxing | Enemy Of My Enemy | GMT Games · 454 views · 11 min — the expansion to The British Way

Contemporary — 1

· TheGimpyGamer — Urban Operations Example of Play · 488 views · 42 min

Beyond the era — podcasts, conventions, magazines & non-historical games — 21

· Ardwulf’s Lair — NBNBS: TROLLPAK, Avalon Hill 1988, RuneQuest Third Edition · 195 views · 11 min [RPG]

· Ardwulf’s Lair — The Outer Rim, an Unofficial Setting for Traveller · 879 views · 2 min [RPG]

· Armchair Dragoons — #CNXONL26 Pitfalls of AI in wargames · 15 views · 1 min [Conference]

· Armchair Dragoons — #CNXONL26 Modeling doubt without hiding information · 6 views · 1 min [Conference]

· Armchair Dragoons — Podcast excerpt from MiD S16e10 — tabletop industry job listings · 28 views · 1 min [Podcast]

· Bill Needels (Punched) — Channel Update 260816 · 286 views · 38 min [Channel update]

· Calandale — History of the World 1 · 252 views · 97 min

· Calandale — History of the World 2 · 182 views · 134 min

· Calandale — History of the World 3 & wrap · 125 views · 131 min

· Calandale — History of the World review · 358 views · 40 min

· Cardboard Commander — Join us tonight! Operation Cardboard Con is a GO! · 164 views · 2 min [Con]

· Gaming with ER Bickford — Fire & Movement 70 · 25 views · 4 min [Magazine]

· Gaming with ER Bickford — Fire & Movement 74 · 21 views · 6 min [Magazine]

· Gaming with ER Bickford — Moves Magazine 100 · 16 views · 9 min [Magazine]

· Gaming with ER Bickford — Magazine Game Collection Part 52 · 31 views · 5 min [Magazine]

· MMP Not Dead Yet — We’re Not Dead Yet Ep 49 — Nationality Rankings! · 1,389 views · 86 min [Podcast]

· Seek Out and Play — War of the Ring: Multiplayer Rules · 165 views · 5 min [Fantasy]

· The Discriminating Gamer — TDG: Cody’s Top 100 Games 2026 (#80-71) · 2,412 views · 19 min [List]

· The Tabletop’s Edge — Introducing a new series for the channel · 314 views · 2 min [New series: pairing games with the book to read alongside them]

· the2halfsquads — T2HS 391: Gateway Goodies St Louis interviews · 106 views · 38 min [Podcast]

· Zilla Blitz — Top 7 Board Wargames with designer Hermann Luttmann, Part 2 · 2,709 views · 45 min [List]

Non-historical — 4

· The Discriminating Gamer — TDG: Exodus: Proxima Centauri · 1,756 views · 16 min [Sci-fi]

· The Discriminating Gamer — TDG: Dune: War for Arrakis — Smugglers · 891 views · 9 min [Sci-fi]

· The Discriminating Gamer — TDG: Eve: War for New Eden unboxing · 542 views · 32 min [Sci-fi]

· The Discriminating Gamer — TDG: Twilight Inscription unboxing · 221 views · 11 min [Sci-fi]

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SUSTAINMENT — Live streams

New this issue. These are finished broadcasts, which YouTube keeps on a separate tab from ordinary uploads. So none of them have appeared in WARNO before. Long by nature and mostly play or talk. Where the same stream went out on several channels it is listed once per channel, because three creators turning up to the same thing is itself worth seeing.

· Aaron Plays — COMBAT! LIVE | American Squad Campaign, Normandy July 1944, Episode 1 · 236 views · 141 min

· Aaron Plays — COMBAT! LIVE | Episode 2 · 149 views · 116 min

· Aaron Plays — The Ultimate Solo Squad Game? Ambush! vs Combat! | Let’s Discuss Episode 5 · 108 views · 108 min

· Ardwulf’s Lair — Counter Clipping Ep282 | Bronze Age Wargaming + News · 1,210 views · 118 min

· Armchair Dragoons — Feeding the Content Beast — Keeping the Wargaming Media Flowing · 207 views · 81 min

· Cardboard Commander — Coffee & Counters · 196 views · 31 min

· Cardboard Commander — Zone Of Control | Episode 73 · 259 views · 56 min

· Compass Town Hall — Compass Games Town Hall, Episode 140 · 884 views · 68 min

· My Own Worst Enemy — Solobabble Live! Episode 1 · 177 views · 61 min

· Tony’s Board Life — Fields of Fire 2 co-op with Mike Bertucelli, Part 2 · 112 views · 114 min

· Wiseguy History — Hell Let Loose: Vietnam | Live gameplay · 179 views · 88 min

FLASH URGENT

Gettysburg in Living Color — the October meetup, co-streamed across three channels, 109 minutes: - Hex to Hex —

· 422 views - WARdROBE —

· 55 views (and a vertical cut at 220 views) - Camp Sawyer —

· 52 views

END FLASH

SUSTAINMENT — Blogs

The Players Aid — 8 - Unboxing Video: Sykes-Picot from Hollandspiele · 2026-08-22 - Solitaire Playthrough Video: HISPANIA from Draco Ideas · 2026-08-21 - History Behind the Cards — Checkpoint Charlie, Card #5: Berlin Film Festival · 2026-08-20 - Guest Blog: The Battles of the American Revolution Tournament at WBC 2026 — AAR by Mark Miklos · 2026-08-19 - My Favorite Wargame Cards — Card #90: Mob, from Time of Crisis · 2026-08-18 - Interview with Volko Ruhnke, designer of Drachen: Reconnaissance at Verdun 1916 · 2026-08-17 - Unboxing Video: The Rock of Chickamauga from Flying Pig Games · 2026-08-16

PAXsims — 6 - Sixteen Games That Made Me a Wargamer · 2026-08-22 - MORS Designing Tactical Games Course, 3–5 November 2026 · 2026-08-21 - The Army Taught Me to Write Like AI · 2026-08-20 - Wargaming nightmare scenarios · 2026-08-18 - RAND: Exploring AI’s Operational Implications in a Future US–China Conflict · 2026-08-18 - Chinese wargaming reaches new heights · 2026-08-18

The Boardgames Chronicle — 3 - Cuius Regio: The Thirty Years War — Unboxing & Overview · 2026-08-21 - Phenomena of Mike Lambo Solo Designs · 2026-08-19 - Army of the Potomac: Campaigns of 1862 and 1864 — Unboxing & Overview · 2026-08-16

Grymauch’s Solo Wargaming Blog — 2 - Pony Wars: The Homestead, Turns 25 — Conclusion · 2026-08-20 - Pony Wars: The Homestead, Turns 17–24 · 2026-08-16

Cardboard Commander — 2 - Looking for a Game? Operation Cardboard Con Can Help! · 2026-08-23 - Cube4me Turns 5! · 2026-08-16

Sgt Steiner’s Wargaming Blog — 1 - Battle Command — Jakubowo 1812 scenario · 2026-08-21

Board Game Views — 1 - Spirited — A lucky hit? · 2026-08-17

Wargaming Weekly — 1 - #081: Am I stretching the definition of a wargame too far?! · 2026-08-19

Systematic Hatreds (Paul Musgrave) — 1 - Time is a Weapon · 2026-08-22

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Quickly as that feeling came it was followed by new sensations and smells. Smelting metal, sharp and strange, it cut through the off shore breeze, a rising wave of nausea hit him like a four horse chariot. Then his visage tilted, slanting disorientated. The Tenth stood at arms at a sharp impossible angle. They receded rapidly. He wheeled his horse in desperation. ‘Take me, the falling sickness is upon me.’ He gasped.

Horses closed around him on all sides, restricting the sideways distress of his steeds nervous prancing, someone took his reins, others kept him upright. They raced to a nearby tower. All the while he saw distant arms reach for him, as a heavy cold bubble swelled in his stomach, rushed up his throat, stealing his breath.

‘Wait, wait on the atta..gunhgaah..’ Was all he could manage. His tongue felt thick and heavy, trapped behind teeth that had begun to chatter against a sudden phantom chill. Glancing over his shoulder the battlefield was miles away or so it seemed.

The warming sun smashed jagged light into his pupils. Forming pulsing halos. It bleached his vision, the landscape, red was black, sand, rock and grass were white as sun bleached bone. Somewhere copper burned in a brazier and blood tasted upon his lips. His back arched in pain. Spasms wracked his body.

Officers, and assistants attended to him, ‘water, no wine,’ said one, ‘a damp cloth’ someone else shouted. A make shift divan was set up. Helmet removed, armor loosened.

Then a lone horn sounding the advance.

Everyone froze around Caesar.

Except Caesar. His eyes momentarily focused a numb grimace formed. A strangled gurgle. Then he slumped back.

The Tenth stepped off, then more trumpets sounded. Caesars army advanced.

‘Felicitas’ he gasped. Eyes closing.

He could hear echoes of elephants trumpeting. Horses neighing. The distant thud of sandals on hard ground. Caesars vision swam. Then zoomed in, causing him to lurch forward. Arrows and slingshots zipped by him, elephants reared in fear in front of him. He flinches as a trunk reaches for him. Then his Legionnaires step in slashing and cutting, just as they had been trained to do. Contemptuous now of the slow beasts, deliberate in their attacks up the thick hides. Fearless in front of the armoured elephants, calm cavalry rear and dart in between the lumbering beasts. Terror is in the eyes of the beasts now as they rampage through their own lines. They kknew not what to do other than break ranks and run! Turning on one another, the elephants are heedless of their riders’ attempts at control. Destroying their own ranks, casting bodies to and fro, disorder reigned.

The he could see the Tenth. His veterans, his beloved ragged, loyal Tenth, race in behind them, taking advantage of teh chaotic moment. Loosing pila, among the disordered ranks, a devastating rain of death. His vision swims, now telescoped out. The sun, now brilliantly bright sears his vision, or so it seems.

He sees the Tenth at a distance now, charging in with a roar, drawing gladius and then locking scutum.

Roman against Roman.

Caesar sees the urgency on his Legionnaires faces up close, the anger. This is not Pharsalus this fleeting thought struck him. These men had won this war time and time again. They faced yet again the same enemy. The same usurpers. It was time for all of them to die, he felt it, he saw it, in his men’s faces. Rage boiled there.

Caesars vision swam again. Dizzy, spinning to the left. The Thirteenth and Fourteenth were ferocious also. Pressing hard, this was no battle that had been fought before, the sweat of hard labour poured from under Celtic inspired bronze helms. Beneath their lorica they were drenched. Yet they fought with a savagery borne of desire to end the madness of Civil War.

Once and for all.

Caesars bones ached. His heart swelled in pride.

Moorish cavalry seeing the Elephants turn tail, also turned to flee. They were among the first to run. Then the Tenth press home their advantage. Caesars fists clench, and unclench.

The slaughter continues in front of him, Caesar sees it all. As if in a dream. Up close, and from a mile in the sky all at once. The epileptic throes abusing his mind and body as his eyes behold his men’s most savage fighting. He feels the blows. The vibration of gladius upon scutum shaking his very core. Gladius upon gladius, scutum to scutum. Boss’s smashing faces, thigh slashes, throats gouged, arms sliced.

Jab, parry, thrust, twist. Rend. Faces torn in pain. Underneath it all a rage spurred by the fire of hunger, hardship and pride. Fueld by the frustration, the primal urge to live one more day. Caesar groans, hands shaking, legs tensed. Reaching. Willing his men to finish the job.

As the dust settles across the battlefield, Caesar is once more upon his steed, composed.

Riding with his guard through the carnage. Before him, 10,000 dead lay, broken, trampled, empty misshapen husks. Roman blood soaks the ground he rides upon.

Now recovered but exhausted. A sadness replaces the earlier joy he felt at the onset of his fit.

This is Roman blood shed by Roman men. Casting about his eyes seek an answer he cannot find. A tattered standard of a now lost Legion flutters in the sea breeze.

Turning back towards the camp, now the prisoners must be dealt with. More death. No more mercy, despite his misgivings.

Would things have been different if he had not had this falling fit?

“But now that we have all graduated, what happens? Wargames have largely stagnated in the last decade. There has been an endless repetition of the same themes, chiefly those involved with NATO and World War II.”

Joseph Miranda wrote that in Fire & Movement #67, August 1990. He was the managing editor. He was not being rude about the hobby I suspect he was mourning it as he saw it then.

What he was arguing?

Miranda’s claim was that wargaming had done something remarkable and then stopped. His generation, raised on Avalon Hill and SPI, had absorbed more military history than the average serving officer:

“Wargaming served as a sort of unofficial national university for military studies. It taught people military terminology and history, strategy, geography, and decision making.”

His test for that was a good one who else, he asked, automatically knows what a division is, how NATO’s order of battle stands, and where the Fulda Gap is?

Then came the diagnosis. Wargames had stagnated, and the usual explanation that they’d got too complicated in the eighties was only half of the assessment. His second reason is the interesting one:

“another, paradoxical, reason is that wargames became less military. They lost some of their value as military instructional tools.”

Two specifics. Counters stopped using NATO standard symbols and went over to silhouettes. And:

“instead of developing logistics and intelligence systems, wargames either ignored them, or utilized rules which had no connection to the realities of these fields of warfare.”

Indeed the article also hits a very solid point as reason three. Role Playing Games [RPG’s]. People gathering together to use their imaginations and bits of paper and a rough drawn dungeon or space ship to have fantastic adventures. Its pretty hard to compete with the thrill of a magical sword vs a 1d6 CRT.

He wasn’t only complaining. On page 62 he answered a reader from issue #65 who’d asked how to make wargames more realistic without juggling numbers or tinkering with zones of control. Miranda’s suggestions were concrete: replace the ZOC with a one-hex area of influence and a two-hex area of interest march-order units entering the first must deploy or take losses, concealed units entering the second are revealed. At tactical scale, drop “zone of control” for field of fire. Give each arm its own combat results table, so artillery produces suppression and attrition, armour produces penetration and breakthrough, and infantry takes ground. In the main, some terminological [is that even a word lol] swapping.

What is interesting is that later that year Dean Essig and The Gamers publishing would ‘storm onto the playing field.’ With 11 titles from 1990 to 2000, that I have in my collection. All bringing new concepts to WWII as well as Napoleonic’s, ACW and more.

Two readers told him he was wrong, in opposite directions

Fifty pages later in the same issue, two subscribers wrote in to disagree with the editorial and with each other. This is why these letters are gold! On one page, three futures for the hobby.

Dr. Terry Alan Baney — “not ancients, not LIC. Marketing.”

Baney teaches history at Post College in Connecticut, and he grants Miranda the point about formats before taking it somewhere better:

“You are quite correct in saying that gamers need not become slaves to hexagon-shaped map displays, zones of control, etc.”

Then he looks at which format experiments actually sold, and finds the variable isn’t format at all:

“The success of GDW’s A House Divided in the early 1980’s demonstrated that innovative approaches can be accepted, a notion confirmed by the later success of MB’s Axis & Allies. However, GDW had rather less success with Soldier King and MB did not do as well with Shogun. My guess is that while the formats used in these games were quite similar to the ones used with the initial game successes, the topics covered were not as attractive.”

Same mechanics, different subject, different outcome. Topic beats format. Good analysis, still true to my mind. That proof sits on our groaning shelves. A plethora of new topics, never covered before or covered with new insights.

Having got the mechanism right, he uses it to make a call:

“I have genuine reservations about rejuvenating the board wargaming hobby through emphasis on LIC (Low Intensity Conflict) and warfare in the era of the ancients… I doubt that either can be the vanguard of a hobby expansion.”

And it isn’t arbitrary he has evidence from the day job: “college course offerings on World War II at my place of employment are now among the most popular, while those on Greece and Rome are stagnating.”

His actual prescription is where it gets uncomfortable. He says the problem is reach, not subject, and lists the fixes:

“…focus hobby attention on reaching a wider audience through more effective marketing… designing games that do not necessarily require extensive play-area space, packaging games in a more portable format (e.g., card-styled games or ones that can be played in ringed binders, etc.), and focusing upon recognizable topics that are part of the historical record.”

Card-styled games. Written in 1990. We The People is three years away. Storybook games took fire in the last 24 months. Was he wrong?

He also has the anecdote that ought to be on a poster. He taught two friends Gettysburg ’88, both loved it, and:

“both are Civil War buffs, yet neither had ever heard of the game. I cannot help but wonder how many would-be hobbyists exist as an untapped clientele, owing to their lack of exposure to our games.”

Kevin Rohrer — “king silicon, and the quicker the better”

The second letter goes the other way entirely:

“Yes, the second revolution in wargaming will eventually arrive, but it won’t be due to a new type of CRT, mapgrid, or unit marker design; the revolution will come when wargamers move from board games to computers… the cardboard ruler of the wargame world will eventually have to turn over its crown to its more flexible successor: king silicon; and the quicker, the better for us all.”

He is not speculating from the outside. He’d subscribed since issue #1 and had already left: “my interest in board games [dwindled] and was replaced by computer gaming.” His closing line is the thesis:

“If there is to be a second revolution in wargaming, it will be due to the computer, for without it, wargaming will grow stale.”

One thing he saw clearly. He describes a hybrid “using the printed map and counters with the computer serving as the referee and moderator” which is VASSAL and Cyberboard, twenty years early, and he was right that it was coming. Now of course vassal has no moderator, but has given us a window to community, to team play via remote and the ability to leave the game set up!

Just note there is current day inappropriate language in column 2. I was going to block it. But figured we are all adults here

What happened next

On the diagnosis he was right, but has it aged into an indictment? Thirty-six years later the WWII share of this hobby is not smaller. I ran the numbers across my own library and video output earlier this month: ancients are the best-supplied and least-exploited era I own, and the Cold War is the thinnest at roughly a fifth of a source per video. The repetition Miranda complained about in 1990 is the shape of my own collection in 2026. But looking closer reveals that since 2020 I have still bought WWII titles. 63 out of the 458 I have owned or previously owned to be exact. With just 93 with a 1963 to 1990 publishing date.

We still see new titles on WWII, we still see new systems for WWII conflicts. We are also seeing more and more topics that have not been covered by the generic SPI one rule-set suits them all model, or the often partially baked AH efforts to cover a topic.

New research, new topics, new designers and their fresh takes. New Publishers with print on demand capability, smaller print runs requiring less capital, and higher quality components to draw in the crowd. I think the art argument is a false one too. Very few will die on the hill of NATO symbols or bust. As wargamers I think we can move beyond that, past that, and look at the intent, the design, the scale. Its also a bigger picture thing. — Visual appeal matters. A LOT! This is how we draw money from wallets! This is why Shrink rips as much as we love to hate them are so damn popular. Everyone wants to know “what does it look like” almost more than how it plays.

On logistics, intelligence and complexity he was right too, and then partly overtaken. OCS exists and is about almost nothing else. TCS makes you write orders and live with them. Those are exactly the systems he said were missing. That is just one designer.

The SPI ‘monster game’, the simulation vs game evolution has now evolved into camps. We see plenty of playable and not so playable complex monsters being released. We also see a plethora of easy games, introductory games that are aimed at not just a topic, but to be consumable by entry level players and more seasoned players too.

The market saw the PC game market grow, and adapted and innovated. Area movement, point to point, Card Driven Games all still wargames and kinetic. But using new methods and modes borrowed from consumer Euro style games to make the transition a bit easier. Not every conflict need be confined to a hex grid format.

And on the prescriptions..,well.. this is the part that surprised me, the hobby did what he asked, just slowly. Area of influence exist in various formats, are now unremarkable. Per-arm combat resolution while not common is seen being used. He was describing 2010s design in 1990.

And on computers, the line that reads oddest now is the one he got right.

“What’s needed is something to get us excited about board wargaming again. We do not need to retire to the blissful fields of computer gaming.”

He is not predicting the machines will win. He is refusing to concede to them. In 1990, with the PC market climbing and every second editorial writing the hobby’s obituary, the managing editor of Fire & Movement says: stay in cardboard, and go and recruit. That is the call, and the hobby made it, it faded, it waned, it did not die. The two now happily co-exist.

Its an old saw. Ever since the late 70’s the sky is falling, the hobby is greying out, we are doomed, we few, we brave grognards. Like some hokey badge of honor. He was one of the few not selling it.

The same argument today

Ancients and low-intensity conflict. Those are the two Baney named as incapable of leading an expansion, and they are the two that did or have potential to.

GBOH is one of the systems this whole channel runs on. Ancients is, by my own count, the best-supplied and least-exploited era on my shelves not a fringe, a backlog. In the early days of my blogging and youtube adventures, you may recall the stop motion videos I created of famous GBOH titles and battles. The AAR’s. I’m rectifying that with a new series of plays set in the ancient era, and being worked on as we speak. Low-intensity conflict didn’t merely find a following; it became one of the most successful design lines the hobby has produced. Not my cup of tea, but the games sell and draw in players from wargame adjacent spaces

But he wasn’t guessing. His WWII courses were full and his Greece and Rome courses were emptying, and he reasoned straight from that. The bit he couldn’t see is that a wargame table is not a lecture hall, far from it. The subjects that fill a syllabus and the subjects that make a good game are not the same list, and ancients turned out to be one of the best things you can put on a table. Trust me on that one.

And on everything except the subject, he was right early. Card-styled games. Small-footprint games. Recognisable topics. Reaching people who like the history and have never heard of the games. He wrote that in 1990 and the hobby spent the next thirty years doing all four.

Rohrer got the tool right and the verdict backwards. We do play across a screen now, with the computer as store of record and the counters on a printed map a perfect replica in digital format. Exactly his hybrid. It just didn’t take the crown off cardboard.

Me – exactly 50% of my plays this year have been WWII. Thirteen sessions across 11 titles.

The verdict, We got a bigger boat!

Three men on one page in August 1990, and the hobby went a fourth way.

Miranda said broaden the subjects. Baney said don’t bother, fix the reach. Rohrer said cardboard is finished. What actually happened is that the subjects broadened, the reach got fixed, the hybrid tools arrived and none of it came at cardboard’s expense. It all just got added, our pie grew, our audience grew, we flourished after a dip.

Baney is the one worth reading twice. He was wrong about the two topics he named and right about nearly every method he proposed, which is a better hit rate than most forecasts manage and the opposite way round from how we usually score them. We remember the miss because it’s quotable. The card-styled games line isn’t quotable and it was three years early.

And the last word goes to the page itself. Rohrer’s argument was that without the computer “wargaming will grow stale.” Thirty-six years on, board wargaming is not stale and Fire & Movement, the magazine he was writing to, is gone. The magazine ended up being the dinosaur that digital has killed. He had the extinction right and the species wrong. Digital came for the paper, not the cardboard! And it came for the paper that was carrying the argument about the cardboard. You are reading this on a screen because of it.

Interesting and something to be explored further.

Almost prove me wrong

Are there five games published this year that are not WWII, Cold War or ACW?

Source note: Joseph Miranda, “Firing Line — What Do We Do Next?” and “Realism versus Sanity (continued),” Fire & Movement #67 (August 1990), pp. 4, 62. Letters from Dr. Terry Alan Baney (Post College, Department of History, CT) and Kevin Rohrer (Wadsworth, OH), “Crossfire,” same issue, p. 54 — both responding to Miranda’s “The Second Revolution in Wargaming,” F&M #65. #65 is not in the collection — it is described here only as the letters and the editorial characterise it, never quoted directly.

Their column was ready to march down the road to Lutzroda.

“Merde, let us be on our way. This fog is spooking me.” Said Gerard out the side of his mouth.

“Shh, any moment now zee Colonne de manoevre will begin. Do not draw the ire of the Sous, you know how uppity he is!” Franco murmered back.

“Attention men of the 103e my fusliers and grenadiers of renown. It is time to march!” Their Colonel drew his sword and pointed teh way. As one the men shouldered arms, their damp scarlet cuffs piped in white flashed to their sides and off they stepped. Droplets of accumulated mist fell from shakos onto the broadshoulders of the men.

Gerard set his face into his usual grimace. “About bloody time, lets skewer these Prussians once and for all.” He said out loud. All who heard him said “Huzzah!” Then came the drum beat and off they marched. A dull thud through the oppressive fog. Booted feet crunched on gravel, the pace picked up. Behind them the 100th were tight on their tails. Sounds echoed everywhere. A chill settled on Gerards shoulders. ‘Merde.’ He said again

Ahead muffled musket shots were heard over the sound of their march. By some celver step counting, the regiment exited the road at the curve, and appraoched through the undualating field. long wet grass swept breeches.

“Voltiguers — en tirailleurs!”

The skirmishers went out and were gone, swallowed at twenty paces.

“Colonne d’attaque — formez!”

Gerard felt the whole regiment change shape around him. Off the road the march column stopped being a road thing four abreast and became two companies wide, ranks stacked behind, the grenadiers peeling out to take the flanks the way they always did. Nobody said form line. Gerard waited on it out of habit, and it did not come.

“We are going in like this?”

“We are going in like this.”

He had heard the officers argue it over a fire once, that a column of attack does not want to shoot and does not need to, that what it has is weight and depth and the men on its edges, and that weight is what takes a village.

Random musket balls flitted through the air from an unseen enemy. Skirmishers could be heard encouraging the 103rd forward, as pickets were killed.

Ragged fire tagged the discplined formation. A few meaty thwacks were heard here and there. The odd cry in pain from a more serious wound. Lines close around those that fell. Somewhere ahead, glimmering muzzle flashes could be seen indistinctly in the swirl of fog.

Then the drum, and the order, and the run at it.

Fifty paces. Thirty. Gerard could see the wall.

The wall did not give.

There was no moment he could point at after. No check he could name, no volley that broke them. The village took what they brought and did not move, and then there were sergeants in among them shouting them back, and Gerard was walking backwards down his own line of advance with his bayonet fixed and nothing on it. “Merde.” He panted. Gripping his musket tightly.

They re-formed out in the field. Somebody was counting. Somebody always counted.

“Three sides we came at it from,” said Franco, to nobody. “Three.”

“It did not open.”

“They do not. Not the first time.”

The Prussian fire followed them out and went high, and wide, and into the fog, and hit nothing at all. Gerard flinched at every round of it regardless. Then he noticed, dimly, that he was not being killed. That none of them were. Two hundred paces of open wet field, a garrison behind farm walls with every advantage a man could ask for, and the shooting was going nowhere.

“This soup,” said Franco, and let it sit there.

“What of it.”

“The same soup that has you spooked is why you have both your ears.”

Behind them, back toward Closewitz, the guns began to work.

“Baionette au canon!” came the order, the second time. “Now we are getting somewhere.” said Gerard, and did not altogether mean it.

“Aye, now its cold steel, shoulder to shoulder Gerard.”

“Always.”

“croisez la baionnettes” Gerard and Franco were front line, their muskets now horizontal, with the seocnd rank close behind angling over their shoulders, and deeper still were the rest of teh men, ready at port arms. “Come on, come on, lets us be among them.”

“Pas decharge, marche!”

thrum, thrum, thrum, the fast paced drum beat, echoed off the fog and the buildings in the distance. Left, right, left right, quickly now. 100 steps a minute, they moved forward almost gliding acros the grass, fog swirled around them, their dark uniforms an apparition of violence racing towards the Prussian defenders, who now attempted to fire at the swirling roiling mass of death approaching. Fifty paces, a thunder of feet, pounding. Murder glared from teh eyes of one and all. Somewhere swords were raised by officers, the troops no longer needed their command, they felt rather than heard the ‘En avant a la baionnette!’

“Vive l Emprereur” roared Gerard, Franco and their host of warriors. Their blood up, now a controlled run. Men in white and blue appeared fleetingly, buildings took form and shape. Dark rectangles back lit by soft interior light led the men of teh 103rd to the enemy.

A musket flashed close to Gerard, so suddenly it spooked him, ‘Merde!” He laughed, amusedat his on fear. TRaining kicked in; lunge, twist, withdraw, a single strangled cry as the throat was torn from the musket weilder. Franco pulled his trigger from the hip, gutting an officer, stepping in close he drove home the bayonet, 18 inches of cold damp steel. Ripping away, blood splatters on the ground and he moves forward side by side with Gerard. Smashing a door open, they heave into the light. Bull rushing the five defenders. A deafening shot rings out, the smell of gunpower and a cloud of smoke in the close quarters. Gerard feels the heat and sting, ears ringing he roars, and shouts like a bearded mad man. He pays no mind to the pain. A jumping lunge carries him forward and bowls over one defender as another tries stabbing feebly with his bayonet. Gerard lashes out with a boot, smashing the knee backwards, batting the baoynet away easily, while his bayonet already deep red, finds its way with practiced prescision into and thru the breast bone, stopping the heart instantly. The second fighter tries to stand, Gerard whips around. with quick jabs arm, chest and gut, fells the man. The two rear most soldiers flee out the kitchen.

All is silent.

Outside, the rest of the Prussians were going down the Weimar road at a pace. West. The way they had been told to go if it came to this.

He looks at Franco smiling. Franco smiles back as he wipes his bayonet on the dead mans uniform. “I see you have ruined another uniform Gerard.” Looking down the dark stain of blood trailing from his bicep to wrist.

“Eh it appears so, well merde.” He says,an undisturbed jug of wine sits on a table. Franco reaches for it, takes a swig and pours a substanial amount on Gerards wound, then tears off a slice of Prussian uniform to bind the grazing musket shot. Gerard grimaces, “pass the wine and stop wasting it. Be quick, we have Prussians to murder. This is a slaughter not a battle.”

Franco grunts. He handed back the jug and put his moustachioed chin toward the east, where the fog was going thin and grey and the guns were still at their work.

“Closewitz is still standing.”

“So was this.”

“Aye.” Franco picked up his musket. “And it took us twice.”

THE SITUATION

Seventy-four videos across twenty-eight channels — and for the third week running, the most-watched thing on the roster wasn’t a game.

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Note: Videos now catalogued by Era!

Zilla Blitz’s Upcoming Wargames + Giveaway took 8,453 views and eighty-nine comments in twenty-nine minutes. His Top 7 Board Wargames, with designer Hermann Luttmann, took another sixty-two comments. Three of the four most-watched videos this week were a news round-up, a top-100 list and an unboxing. The first actual playthrough appears at number seven. Guys! Really? 😊 ….

That is not a complaint about anyone. It is a pattern now, and it has been building since Issue 3: talk out-argues play, every time, by a wide margin. People will watch a game being played. BUT….They will argue about a game being discussed, and the comment counts show it.

Fourteen of this week’s seventy-four videos were commentary, unboxing or magazine coverage rather than play. Nearly one in five. Worth knowing when you’re deciding what to trust before a purchase.

WWII is down to about a third. Twenty-six of seventy-four, against forty-six percent two issues ago. The spread holds: eleven WWI, nine ACW, five Cold War, three apiece for Renaissance and Napoleonic, and one each for Ancient, Age of Sail and Contemporary. Thin at the edges.

And a small oddity worth flagging: Gaming with ER Bickford spent the week reading magazines on camera — Fire & Movement 68, Moves 98 and 99. Nobody else covers the back catalogue. Which is cool as I have new bit coming from my firing Line series featureing issue #68

SIGNAL — Under the Radar

Aaron Plays — CHARGE!! | Combat! Eastern Front | The Assault

Eighty-one views. Sixteen comments. That is a twenty-percent comment rate on a twenty-eight-minute playthrough, a ratio the big channels do not get anywhere near. Small audience, and every one of them is talking back.

Watch him take a single shot apart on camera, castigate the German MG 34, his poor leadership of the Soviets as they are mowed down and stitched up! But there is hope. The next video carries on!

That is what actually playing a game sounds like, and it is why sixteen people had something to say.

81 views · 16 comments · 28 min · WWII —

Episode 15, THE NET TIGHTENS, followed it — 40 minutes:

MISSION — Video: the threads worth pulling

• The talking-head block owns the top of the chart. Zilla Blitz twice; The Discriminating Gamer’s Top 100 Games 2026 in two parts (2,692 and 1,436 views).

• To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

• ASL had its usual disciplined week. ASL Academy ran Scouting Report 89 on the new Journal and Episode 54 on monster campaign games — thirty-two comments apiece, the most engaged non-Zilla discussion on the roster.

• WWII, still the biggest block: MMP’s We’re Not Dead Yet Ep 48 played Hill 253.5 (1,480 views, 62 min); Pushing Cardboard unboxed Pacific Fleet and In Fours to Heaven; Gaming with ER Bickford ran Bastogne (SCS).

• Napoleonic: The Discriminating Gamer on Congress of Vienna (2,019 views); Chewie Matt ran Battle Commander — Montebello over two parts.

• Ancient, and it’s the only one: The Players’ Aid reviewed Bretwalda from Phalanx, 1,552 views.

• ACW had a good week: Camp Sawyer took two sessions over Three Days of Gettysburg — Longstreet’s Assault; Bill Needels went at Culp’s Hill; The Players’ Aid unboxed Rebel Tide.

• Age of Sail gets a look in — Cardboard Commander unboxed Sails of War.

• The magazine corner: Bickford on Fire & Movement 68 and Moves 98 and 99.

(Full ERA arranged list is in SUSTAINMENT below.)

MISSION — BLOG: Featured Posts

• The Players’ Aid had the week — eight posts.

• A Wargamers Needful Things on Battle Commander: Napoleon’s Italian Campaigns, and a genuinely unusual book review — Charles XII Warrior King from Karwansaray.

• PAXsims — three posts, the professional corner: the Connections US 2026 AAR, Medevac!, and a Women’s Wargaming Network session on public-health gaming. [Editorial note: PAXsims is the professional source on this roster. This week leans policy rather than hobby.]

• The Boardgames Chronicle on strategy materials for Inferno, the third Levy & Campaign volume.

NEW FROM BIGBOARD

• Jena — Scenario 1, the play-through AAR — the companion to the preamble. Vive l’Empereur, Trois Batailles en Allemagne, Legion Games.

• Important to whom? Deception, and the wargame that can’t deceive you — the piece promised in Issue 4. Is John Curry’s book the most important wargaming book of 2026? Depends entirely on which wargaming you mean.

• Fallschirmjäger (SCS) — Review — new review format. The Dutch weren’t beaten in 1940; they were ordered to stop, and the game has no way to model that.

• TCS: GD’42 Part 3 & 4

• Packing Up monster games — sixteen minutes of teardown at six times speed, no narration. Could you tell whether I liked it?

SUSTAINMENT — The Full Roundup

[ Political & Non wargame vids removed.]

Subscribe now

Ancient — 1

• The Players Aid — Review | Bretwalda | Phalanx | The Players’ Aid · 1,552 views · 23 min

Probably more like Middle Ages…but pre gun poweder! A Strategy game with modest abstracted combat in it. It only just qualifies as a wargame…But Im generous like that.

Age of Sail — 1

• Cardboard Commander — Unboxing Video | Sails Of War · 48 views · 7 min [unboxing]

Napoleonic — 3

• Chewie Matt — Battle Commander - Montebello 1 · 147 views · 36 min

• Chewie Matt — Battle Commander - Montebello 2 · 84 views · 20 min

• The Discriminating Gamer (Cody Carlson) — TDG: Congress of Vienna · 2,019 views · 14 min

ACW — 9

• Aaron Plays — GETTYSBURG: THE FIRST DAY | Is This Any Better? | Blind Swords System · 44 views · 34 min

• Ardwulf’s Lair — Rebels Against Rebellion | An Interview with David Thompson and Denver Walker · 278 views · 45 min

• Bill Needels (Punched) — 3DoG Newby…Culp’s Hill (T1A1) · 151 views · 20 min

• Camp Sawyer — 3DoGD - Longstreet’s Assault - Introduction and 15:00PM · 548 views · 18 min

• Camp Sawyer — 3DoGD - Longstreet’s Assault - 16:00 turn Hood’s Attack · 183 views · 27 min

• Gaming with ER Bickford — Stonewall in the Valley Avalon Hill · 46 views · 15 min

• John Maag — Line of Batte & GBACW Art Comparison and other stuff · 83 views · 30 min

• Patrick’s Tactics & Tutorials — Roads to Gettysburg II - Scenario #2 - Stuart Rides North · 172 views · 74 min

• The Players Aid — Unboxing | Rebel Tide | Compass Games | The Players’ Aid · 987 views · 11 min

WWI — 11

• Calandale — Weimar Republic review · 1,010 views · 67 min

• Calandale — Weimar Republic Crisis · 362 views · 59 min

• Calandale — Weimar Republic Decline & wrap · 178 views · 108 min

• Calandale — Weimar Republic Golden 20s · 168 views · 125 min

• Category Solo — The Far Seas - Review & Impressions - VUCA Simulations · 35 views · 25 min

• Hexed And Countered — Tankschlacht: Cambrai 1917 (Revolution Games) | Gameplay - German Counterattack & Stoßtruppen · 168 views · 42 min

• Hexed And Countered — The Lamps are Going Out - World War I (Compass Games) | First Look & Rules Overview · 50 views · 29 min

• Nangwaya — The German 11th Army Continues To Press The Russian 10th Out Of East Prussia — January 7th, 1915 · 113 views · 10 min

• Nangwaya — The German 8th Army Falls Back Towards Lodz And Awaits The Arrival of 10th Army HQ — January 7, 1915 · 47 views · 7 min

• Nangwaya — Combining The Production Capabilities And Reinforecement Schedules, Allowing Me To Plan Far Ahead. · 32 views · 10 min

• Nangwaya — Amazing Schemes For Downing The Germans · 20 views · 8 min

WWII — 24

• Aaron Plays — CHARGE!! | Combat! Eastern Front | The Assault Gathers Pace | Episode 14 · 81 views · 28 min

• Aaron Plays — THE NET TIGHTENS | Combat! Eastern Front | Soviet Resistance Crumbles… | Episode 15 · 45 views · 40 min

• ASL Academy — Advanced Squad Leader Scouting Report 89 - Journal #17 · 1,275 views · 22 min

• ASL Academy — Advanced Squad Leader RSS - Episode 54 - Monster CGs · 405 views · 59 min

• Bill Needels (Punched) — Italy ’43 - Unboxing #ww2 #wargaming #unboxing · 170 views · 28 min

• Bill Needels (Punched) — Drive on Voronezh - Turn 2 and Analysis #ww2 #wargaming · 128 views · 40 min

• Bill Needels (Punched) — Armored Knights Case Blue - 4 Page Combat Charts Demo #ww2 #wargaming · 112 views · 12 min

• Bill Needels (Punched) — Italy 43 Turn 1 Germans and Analysis #ww2 #wargaming · 105 views · 8 min

• Bill Needels (Punched) — Panzer Battles - 11th Panzer Activation - Live Play (T5A1) #ww2 #wargaming · 63 views · 13 min

• Bill Needels (Punched) — Panzer Battles - Soviets Attack and Interdict (T5A2) · 33 views · 15 min

• Gaming with ER Bickford — Bastogne Standard Combat Series · 53 views · 23 min

• Matt White Wargames — On the Table - Band of Brothers WW2 Wargame · 279 views · 9 min

• MMP Not Dead Yet — We’re Not Dead Yet Ep 48 - Let’s Play Hill 253.5 · 1,480 views · 62 min

• Pushing Cardboard — Pacific Fleet Unboxing · 3,592 views · 21 min

• Pushing Cardboard — In Fours to Heaven Unboxing · 1,288 views · 31 min

• Pushing Cardboard — Fallschirmjaeger Unboxing · 304 views · 9 min

• Seek Out and Play — Warfighter WWII Expansion #52: The Battle of Dieppe - Unboxing & Presentation · 100 views · 4 min

• Seek Out and Play — Warfighter 29: Australia · 84 views · 4 min

• The Discriminating Gamer (Cody Carlson) — TDG: Sniper Elite: Deluxe Upgrade Kit unboxing with Ray · 314 views · 6 min

• WARdROBE — Combat Commander FTF Fat Lipki Game Over Man · 96 views · 1 min

• Wayne Hansen — Let’s Play! Assault on the 105s! | WW2 | Tactical | Solo · 641 views · 85 min

• Wiseguy History — Coast Watchers (Unboxing - GMT Games) · 293 views · 20 min

• Zilla Blitz — Fast-Playing WW2 Tank Dueling | Tank Clash Eastern Front Overview | Ameba Games · 2,763 views · 14 min

• Zilla Blitz — Full Scenario Gameplay - Tank Clash Eastern Front | Ameba Games · 1,168 views · 30 min

Cold War — 5

• Aaron Plays — FIRST PLATOON DECIMATED | Fields of Fire Deluxe: Vietnam | Episode 5 · 82 views · 58 min

• Aaron Plays — MASHER / WHITE WING | Vietnam 1965-1975 | Turn 2: Part B | Two-Player Vassal Playthrough | Episode 3 · 74 views · 53 min

• Hexed And Countered — Headquarters: Cold War (PC) - Operation Pacify DLC | Mission 1 Gameplay · 299 views · 83 min

• Hexed And Countered — Headquarters: Cold War (PC) - Operation Pacify DLC | Mission 2 Gameplay · 87 views · 64 min

• Tony’s Board Life — Fields of Fire 2 Peleliu Mission 1 Part 4 · 117 views · 41 min

Contemporary — 1

• TheGimpyGamer — Urban Operations 2nd Edition Review · 339 views · 23 min

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Beyond the era — 14

• Category Solo — “To Boldly Go” & “Second Contact” - Star Trek Captain’s Chair - Second Wave · 117 views · 12 min [SCI FI]

• Gaming with ER Bickford — Fire & Movement 68 · 25 views · 7 min [Magazine]

• Gaming with ER Bickford — Moves Magazine 98 · 24 views · 8 min [Magazine]

• Gaming with ER Bickford — Moves Magazine 99 · 10 views · 7 min [Magazine]

• Meandering Mike — Wargames: Are You Organized? Or Have A Messy Stash? · 89 views · 26 min [Comment]

• Pushing Cardboard — Using Dropbox and VASSAL · 82 views · 6 min [Comment]

• The Discriminating Gamer (Cody Carlson) — TDG: Cody’s Top 100 Games 2026 (#100-91) · 2,692 views · 17 min [Comment]

• The Discriminating Gamer (Cody Carlson) — TDG: Cody’s Top 100 Games 2026 (#90-81) · 1,436 views · 18 min [Comment]

• The Discriminating Gamer (Cody Carlson) — TDG: Zombicide (2nd Edition): Squid Game unboxing with Ray · 1,018 views · 10 min [Fantasy]

• The Discriminating Gamer (Cody Carlson) — TDG: Arkham Horror: The Card Game - Marie Lambeau Investigator Pack unboxing with Ray · 122 views · 5 min [Fantasy]

• The Discriminating Gamer (Cody Carlson) — TDG: Arkham Horror: The Card Game - Carolyn Fern Investigator Pack unboxing with Ray · 98 views · 5 min [Fantasy]

• The Discriminating Gamer (Cody Carlson) — TDG: Arkham Horror: The Card Game - André Patel Investigator Pack unboxing with Ray · 80 views · 5 min [Fantasy]

• Zilla Blitz — Upcoming Wargames + Giveaway | August 2026 | New Releases | Board Games · 8,453 views · 29 min [Comment]

• Zilla Blitz — Top 7 Board Wargames | With Designer Hermann Luttmann | Part 1 · 1,300 views · 49 min [Comment]

SUSTAINMENT — Blogs

A Wargamers Needful Things — 3 - Battle Commander: Napoleon’s Italian Campaigns by Sound of Drums · 2026-08-13 - Charles XII Warrior King by Karwansaray Publishers · 2026-08-12 - Sound of Drums new games on Gamefound and other information · 2026-08-10

PAXsims — 3 - Armchair Dragoons: Connections US 2026 AAR · 2026-08-14 - Medevac! – The Fight to Save Lives · 2026-08-14

The Boardgames Chronicle — 2 - Five years of Cube4Me – anniversary sale · 2026-08-16 - Strategy & Training Materials for Inferno: Guelphs and Ghibellines Vie for Tuscany, 1259-1261 · 2026-08-11

The Players Aid — 7 - Unboxing Video: Lonely Cairn: The Franklin Expedition 1846-? from Catastrophe Games · 2026-08-15 - Video Review: All Are Brothers: Solferino 1859 from Legion Wargames · 2026-08-14 - Castelnuovo 1539 from Draco Ideas – Action Point 2 · 2026-08-13 - Discussion Thread: In-Game Retribution…is that a thing that is acceptable? · 2026-08-12 - My Favorite Wargame Cards – A Look at Individual Cards from My Favorite Games – Card #89: Frederick Douglas from For the People 25th Anniversary Edition from GMT Games · 2026-08-11 - Interview with Sam London Designer of Common Sense: An American Revolution, 1775-1783 from GMT Games · 2026-08-10 - Solitaire Video Review: Crusaders: The Siege of Acre 1291 from Blue Panther · 2026-08-09

[Data-hygiene notes: forty-three of eighty-three videos came back unclassified from the gather — cleared by hand this week. The durable fix is a content_type field separate from era: unboxings, top-tens, channel updates and magazine reads have nowhere to go at present and all land as unclassified. “Age of Sail” is a newsletter bucket, not a canonical era.]

THE SITUATION

Seventy-five [ Political & Non board wargame vids removed] videos across thirty-one channels for sure the busiest week since this newsletter started, and the most diverse from the stand point of topics & eras.

Last issue WWII took forty-six percent of everything historical. This week the hobby went wandering. In seven days: the siege of Acre in 1291, Cambrai in 1917, the Palatinate War of the Thirty Years’ War, ASL in the Pacific, and a hundred-and-ninety-nine-minute walk through the Weimar Republic.

WWII is still the biggest single block at twenty-one videos, but it is no longer most of the map.

Three things worth digging into.

Cuius Regio has arrived! Justegarde put up fifty-three minutes on the Palatinate War scenario — 1,485 views, twenty comments. GMT’s Thirty Years War game has been quietly landing on tables since release and this is the first substantial play video I’ve seen on it.

I just finished my Intro scenario, of it. BigBoard videos will start dropping on the 13^th of August.

WBC has been digested. Next. MMP’s We’re Not Dead Yet Ep 47 is the debrief, and at thirty-seven comments on a sixty-minute podcast it drew more discussion than anything except Zilla’s monthly.

If you didn’t get to Seven Springs, that’s the recap to listen to.

And the most-discussed video of the week wasn’t a game at all. Zilla Blitz’s Game of the Month pulled 3,728 views and sixty-two comments.

So, it appears state-of-the-hobby videos clearly work! This is the second week running one has out-viewed every playthrough on the roster. Not my personal preference, mind you. I’d rather sit down to a long dive into an actual game. But the numbers say plenty of people disagree, and that’s useful to know.

NEW TO THE ROSTER — Lone Boardsman

A new channel joins the coverage this week, and it earns its place immediately: Lone Boardsman put out a thirty-eight-minute triple review of the Worthington Kickstarter including: Midway Solitaire, Pacific War 1942 and Tarawa 1943 in one sitting. He also posted a solo write-up of Colonial Twilight on the French-Algerian War, where the FLN came back from an early French ascendancy to take Algiers on the third Propaganda card.

Solo-focused, patient, and covering the small-publisher end that gets thin coverage elsewhere. Worth a follow.

SIGNAL — Under the Radar

Camp Sawyer — Panzer North Africa: Gazala, “Grant’s Graveyard” 265 views, seven comments, thirty minutes on the opening turns of Gazala. Small channel, unhurried, and picking a battle that gets talked about far more than it gets played. Just a side bar here, the Panzer North Africa module is fantastic, so seeing Tobruk and it compared was great! Grants vs Pzr III’s and IVs epic.

265 views · 30 min · WWII —

MISSION — Video: the threads worth pulling

· Rare periods had a good week. Wayne Hansen ran Crusaders: The Siege of Acre 1291 solo (766 views, 44 min) — medieval siege warfare is close to unrepresented on YouTube. Hexed And Countered continued Tankschlacht: Cambrai 1917, the coordinated combat phase, which is the first tank battle getting proper treatment.

· Thirty Years War: Justegarde on Cuius Regio, the Palatinate War scenario.

· WWII, still the largest block: Bill Needels on Sicily II at Primosole Bridge; The Players’ Aid reviewed ASL Starter Kit #4: Pacific; ASL Academy Ep 53 on series replays; TheGimpyGamer previewed Panzer Strike.

· Naval: RvT (Dickie) continued Rule the Waves 3 — “Hoovering up in Biscay”.

· ACW: Pushing Cardboard unboxed Army of the Potomac; Patrick’s Tactics & Tutorials ran a 102-minute Roads to Gettysburg II rematch.

· The long haul award: Calandale, 199 minutes introducing Weimar Republic.

MISSION — BLOG: Featured Posts

Blogs this week

The Players Aid - Unboxing Video: Battles in the East Volume 2: Uman Pocket and Guderian’s Final Blitzkrieg from Decision Games — 2026-08-08 - World Boardgaming Championships 2026 Mission Debrief – A Look at the Numbers — 2026-08-07 - History Behind the Cards – A Look at Checkpoint Charlie from GMT Games – Card #4: Faceoff with the Soviets — 2026-08-06 - Interview with David Thompson Codesigner of Rebels Against Rebellion from Flying Pig Games Currently on Kickstarter — 2026-08-04 - Wargame Watch – What’s New & Upcoming – August 2026 — 2026-08-03

Big Board Gaming - Jena, 14 October 1806 — Preamble — 2026-08-08 - Ukraine ’44 — After-Action Report, Part 2: Turns 6–12 — 2026-08-05 - Ukraine ’44 — After-Action Report (opposed) — 2026-08-04 - Winter War: The Game That Wins the War Finland Lost — 2026-08-04 - GD’42 Part2 — 2026-08-02

Sgt Steiner’s Wargaming Blog - Battle Command - Dresden scenario — 2026-08-08 - Colonial Twilight - a quick COIN interlude — 2026-08-08

Cardboard Commander - My First Look at War Diary Magazine — 2026-08-04 - Discord Invite Link — 2026-08-03
The current standard for best wargame magazine on the market today. I love my War Diary.

Wargaming Weekly - Wargaming Weekly #079: Is this the most important wargaming book of 2026? — 2026-08-03
We will discuss this topic at length next week. I’m reading the book -Important to whom?

PAXsims - Ground Zero: Training cyber-defenders the way we teach wargamers — 2026-08-07

A Wargamers Needful Things - Lee’s War: The War in Virginia 1861 - 1865 by Worthington Publishing — 2026-08-08

NEW FROM BIGBOARD

Five posts this week: - Jena, 14 October 1806 — Preamble (8 Aug) - Ukraine ’44 — AAR Part 2: Turns 6–12 (5 Aug) - Ukraine ’44 — AAR, opposed [part 1] (4 Aug) - Winter War: The Game That Wins the War Finland Lost (4 Aug) - GD’42 Part 2 (2 Aug)

Ukraine 44, is now complete a full run through opposed, and several turns solo. Will also be used to compare a recent The Third Winter play thru of the same battle space!

SUSTAINMENT — The Full Roundup

Everything that dropped this week, by channel. 75 videos across 31 channels — alphabetical, no ranking.

Aaron Plays - THE THREE DAYS OF GETTYSBURG | Why so Difficult to Learn? — 92 views · 18 min · ACW - MASHER / WHITE WING | Vietnam 1965-1975 | Turn 2: Part A | Two-Player Vassal Playthrough | Episode 2 — 34 views · 100 min · Cold War/Modern - SNIPER! | Fields of Fire Deluxe: Vietnam | Episode 4 — 46 views · 55 min · Cold War/Modern - F.U.B.A.R | Combat! Eastern Front | A Case of Mistaken Identity | Episode 13 — 66 views · 34 min - MASHER / WHITE WING | Vietnam 1965-1975 | Turn 1 | Two-Player Vassal Playthrough | Episode 1 — 99 views · 106 min · Cold War/Modern

Armchair Dragoons - #CNXONL26 Matrix games how arguments shape outcomes — 17 views · 2 min

ASL Academy - Advanced Squad Leader RSS - Episode 53 - Series Replays — 310 views · 53 min · WWII

Big Board Gaming - vive le Emperor [en] Jena. Fire combat. — 15 views · 2 min - wrap ukraine 44 solo. — 52 views · 1 min - Jena VIE system /1 intro & turn 1 — 312 views · 4 min - Ukraine ’44 comments and other stuff on table!! — 351 views · 18 min - 14vps! Fallschirmjaeger SCS. — 320 views · 2 min · WWII - Fallschirmjaeger turn 10 update /11 — 513 views · 2 min · WWII

Bill Needels (Punched) - Panzer Battles - Furball and Flight For Soviet Mobile Forces (T4A8) — 27 views · 8 min · WWII - Drive on Voronezh - Breakaway (Turn 1) — 98 views · 54 min · WWII - Sicily II - Primosole Bridge — 101 views · 16 min · WWII - Holland ’44 - A Little Short (Southern Turn 5) — 82 views · 17 min · WWII - Unboxing - Drive on Voronezh — 455 views · 21 min · WWII - Holland ’44 (Southern Turn 4) — 64 views · 13 min · WWII - Sicily II - Primosole Bridge Setup — 3,669 views · 2 min · WWII

Calandale - Weimar Republic (errors) 25 & wrap — 190 views · 70 min - Weimar Republic (errors) 23 — 196 views · 39 min - Weimar Republic (errors) 19 — 288 views · 61 min - Weimar Republic intro — 745 views · 199 min - Elric review — 538 views · 51 min - Elric Homebrew 2 & wrap — 96 views · 66 min - Elric Homebrew 1 — 153 views · 110 min

Camp Sawyer - Panzer North Africa - Battle of Gazala - Grants Graveyard - Turns 8 and 9 — 93 views · 21 min · WWII - Panzer North Africa - Battle of Gazala - Grants Graveyard - Turns 6 and 7 — 142 views · 23 min · WWII - Panzer North Africa - Battle of Gazala - Grants Graveyard - Intro and first few turns — 265 views · 30 min · WWII

Category Solo - Space Infanty Federation - Unbagging & First Look — 52 views · 10 min

Gaming with ER Bickford - Fire & Movement 66 — 16 views · 9 min - Moves Magazine 97 — 17 views · 8 min - Tobruk 1941 S&T 278 — 46 views · 19 min · WWII - Indo Pakistani Wars S&T 174 — 23 views · 21 min - Fire & Movement 64 — 22 views · 9 min - Moves Magazine 96 — 28 views · 8 min

Hexed And Countered - Tankschlacht: Cambrai 1917 (Revolution Games) | Gameplay Primer Part 2 — 132 views · 45 min · WWI - Tankschlacht: Cambrai 1917 (Revolution Games) | Gameplay - Coordinated Combat Phase — 426 views · 48 min · WWI - The Far Seas (Vuca Simulations) | Solo Gameplay Part 2 — 304 views · 50 min

Justegarde - Cuius Regio - The Palatinate War scenario (GMT Games) — 1,485 views · 53 min

Line of Departure - WBC’s 2026: The Full Report — 50 views · 23 min - Leaving WBC’s — 54 views · 2 min

Lone Boardsman - Worthington Kickstarter | Midway Solitaire, Pacific War 1942, Tarawa 1943 | Triple Review! — 356 views · 38 min · WWII

Meandering Mike - Unboxing Falling Crescent - An Exploration and Comparison to Lawrence of Arabia — 134 views · 63 min

MMP Not Dead Yet - We’re Not Dead Yet Ep 47 - WBC Debrief! — 1,284 views · 60 min

My Own Worst Enemy - And The War Came Part 3 — 114 views · 27 min - And The War Came Part 2 — 247 views · 44 min

Nangwaya - German 12th Army Assessment — January 7th, 1915. — 24 views · 6 min

Patrick’s Tactics & Tutorials - Roads to Gettysburg II - Scenario #1 - Meade Moves North - REMATCH, part 2 — 213 views · 102 min · ACW

Pushing Cardboard - 1809 Talavera Unboxing (Tactical Workshop) — 96 views · 15 min · Napoleonic - First to Fight Unboxing — 95 views · 6 min - 56 - Shayne Logan, SD Histcon North recap — 110 views · 61 min - Army of the Potomac Unboxing — 398 views · 12 min

RvT (Dickie) - 09 Let’s Play Rule the Waves 3 | Hoovering up in Biscay — 498 views · 35 min

Seek Out and Play - Is Guerilla a Hidden Gem ? — 204 views · 11 min

The Discriminating Gamer (Cody Carlson) - TDG: 1862 War in Virginia — 176 views · 7 min - TDG: Wingspan Pocket unboxing — 267 views · 13 min - TDG: Pacific War 1942: Solitaire (2nd Edition) unboxing with Ray — 334 views · 6 min · WWII - TDG: Old School Tactical: Volume 5 - Battle for France 1940 unboxing with Ray — 558 views · 16 min · WWII - TDG: Wilderness: May 5-6, 1864 unboxing with Ray — 334 views · 11 min · ACW -

The Players Aid - Review | Europe At War: 1940 Solitaire | Worthington | The Players’ Aid — 335 views · 18 min · WWII - Review | ASL Starter Kit #4 Pacific | MMP | The Players’ Aid — 1,493 views · 21 min · WWII - Unboxing | Midway Solitaire | Worthington | The Players’ Aid — 767 views · 9 min

the2halfsquads - T2HS 390: Ghost Rider Fire and Art du Pont — 66 views · 59 min

Tony’s Board Life - Fields of Fire 2 Peleliu Mission 1 Part 3 — 77 views · 39 min

WARdROBE - Baptism By Fire Kasserine BCS end of turn 4 — 21 views · 3 min · WWII

Wayne Hansen - Let’s Play! Crusaders: The Siege of Acre 1291 | SOLO PLAYTHROUGH — 766 views · 44 min · Medieval

Wiseguy History - John Tiller’s ‘Battleground Gettysburg’ - 1 July, 1863. — 145 views · 143 min · ACW

Zilla Blitz - Rebels Against Rebellion Solo Gameplay | Board Wargames | Board Games | Flying Pig Games — 1,247 views · 40 min - Game of the Month | July 2026 | Board Games | Wargames | PC Games — 3,728 views · 11 min

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62 New vids this week. Lots to cover. Thirty seven of them clock in as “real wargame videos!” The rest are a diverse blend. From Calendale’s pontification on Elric – all 7+ videos to Mr Bickford doing yoemans work on old Wargame Magazines! aka Moves & F&M! Then a swag of RPG style game vids and a few interviews.

Thirty-seven had a real wargame on the table. The other twenty-five: fantasy and licensed-IP titles (13), hobby talk with no game in front of the camera (8), and magazine flip-throughs (4).

Inside the historical half:

· WWII — 17 videos, 46%

· ACW — 4, 11%

· Early modern (1600s–1700s) — 4, 11%

· WWI — 3, 8%

· Napoleonic — 2, 5%

· 20th-c. naval — 2, 5%

· Modern / political — 2, 5%

· AWI — 1, 3%

· Industrial age (1850–1920) — 1, 3%

· Jacobite Rising (1745–46) — 1, 3%

Seven of those seventeen WWII videos are Bill Needels on his own — Sicily II, Holland ’44, Panzer Battles, posted most days of the week. Without his week, WWII is 10 of 30, a third rather than a half.

Everything below WWII is one or two channels deep. ACW is Rebels Against Rebellion covered twice plus Monocacy and the Line of Battle podcast. WWI is both halves of VUCA’s The Far Seas plus a Tankschlacht unboxing — Cambrai, 1917. The early-modern column is Bickford’s Nine Years War run and a Baltic Empires unboxing. Napoleonic is Hexed And Countered alone at Marengo. The Jacobite row is John Maag prepping a Charlie’s Year campaign (Red Sash).

The audience numbers run the other way from the production numbers. The 17 WWII videos pulled about 5,980 views between them — roughly 350 apiece. The 13 non-historical ones pulled 12,160, about 935 apiece.

Reading the numbers: this is 30-odd curated channels, not the entire hobby. View counts are lifetime-to-Saturday, so a Sunday video has had six more days to accumulate than a Friday one. Just a tid bit as I look at the numbers i.e. I posted a video this afternoon it has 18 views.

Smaller channels with less subs will be hard pressed to clock 4 figure+ view patterns, whereas larger channels that are not Wargame specific can do so with some ease, and draw in non wargamer and wargamer alike views.

Elsewhere it was WBC week — The Players’ Aid filed daily debriefs from Seven Springs for six straight days, which is most of this issue’s blog volume and worth reading as a run rather than as separate posts. They actually wrap that all up tomorrow.

SIGNAL — Under the Radar

Meandering Mike — Avoid Overseas Surprises When Buying Games (A Walk and Talk) Not the biggest small channel, but the most useful video in the gather — and the best comment-to-view ratio of anything this week (~97 views, 17 comments). Mike walks and talks through what importing a wargame now costs an American buyer:

· The de minimis exemption is gone. Orders under $800 used to clear without duty. That’s expired, not renewed.

· Country of origin is what’s assessed, not country of shipment — he’d previously been charged at the Chinese rate on a Chinese-made game imported via Canada.

· A “North American store” is not a promise of a domestic warehouse. He ordered two games from a European publisher’s North-American-flagged storefront, it shipped from Europe, and FedEx presented an import bill of $30.90 — roughly double what he’d paid for shipping — with no warning from carrier or seller.

· The carrier’s admin and processing fees can dwarf the duty itself. Owe twenty cents of duty, get charged five or ten dollars to process it.

His advice: read the fine print on who carries the duty, check where the goods ship from and where they were made, and if you can’t get a straight answer from the seller, don’t order. He credits eBay’s global shipping programme for stating up front when charges are covered. He says three times that it isn’t a political video, and he’s right that it doesn’t need to be — it’s consumer mechanics.

97 views · 26 min —

MISSION — Video: the threads worth pulling

· VUCA Simulations had a busy week. The Far Seas drew an unboxing and first look from Category Solo and a solo playthrough from Hexed And Countered; The Players’ Aid discussed Imperial Elegy: Solo Bots.

· Flying Pig’s Rebels Against Rebellion got an overview from Zilla Blitz and a preview from Hexed And Countered. Flying Pig is running a kickstarter for this strategy card driven game. I have not seen anything on it, but it appears to be a historical Euro set in the ACW around anti succession movements.

· Zilla Blitz also made complexity his August monthly-update topic, off a poll of about 900 responses: medium won at 42%, but 33% said they want their games more complex, not less — the opposite of what he’d predicted, and he says it’s changing what he covers.

· Napoleonic: Hexed And Countered ran Napoleon at War Deluxe Edition (Decision Games) at Marengo across two parts.

· ACW: Wayne Hansen played Early Threatens Washington: Monocacy Junction solo, and MMP’s We’re Not Dead Yet Ep 46 featured Nick Roser on Line of Battle. Nick has a fantastic new design out that is on the PXXX list at MMP.

· WWII: Bill Needels posted a full week on Sicily II plus Panzer Battles and Holland ’44; WARdROBE finished an Old School Tactical East Front scenario; Battlefield Banter closed out Combat Commander: Mediterranean Scenario 21; ASL Academy ran an episode on the morale system.

· Naval / strategic: RvT (Dickie) continued Rule the Waves 3 as Italy.

· Podcasts and interviews: Cardboard Commander put out a Zone of Control episode; Pushing Cardboard interviewed Shayne Logan.

· For newcomers: Seek Out and Play’s Three Types of Print Wargames is a genuinely clean four-minute explainer — hex-and-counter, card-driven, card-only, with a note on each one’s downside. Worth having a link to when someone asks where to start.

MISSION — BLOG: Featured Posts

· The Players’ Aid — WBC 2026 daily debriefs, Days 1–6 plus the series opener. Read as a run.

· The Boardgames Chronicle — Men of Iron: Blood & Roses overview, and Part 4 of the Crusades campaign via C&C Medieval (Ramla).

· Wargaming Weekly — a first win in an AI-adjudicated wargame, reviewing The Price of Hasakah on the Providence platform. — https://wargamingweekly.substack.com/p/the-price-of-hasakah-on-providence-by-experttheory

· Sgt Steiner’s — Khalkhin Gol with Chain of Command 2 at the Ulster Wargames Society.

· Grymauch’s Solo Wargaming Blog — Pony Wars: The Homestead, turns 9–16.

From the field — professional / serious-play corner Standing note: PAXsims covers professional and serious-play wargaming rather than the hobby. It’s here because the two fields borrow from each other constantly, and the professional side is where a lot of design thinking gets tested first. - Wargaming and the perils of LinkedIn — LinkedIn has become the de facto professional network for conflict simulation, and the post examines what that platform’s incentives do to the discourse. - Wargaming in a resilience context — the UK Resilience Academy’s insight paper by Rob Grayston, arguing civil resilience exercising should deliberately borrow matrix games, serious games and megagames from military wargaming. - How to Play a Matrix Game – An Introduction — short instructional video from the wargaming team at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies.

NEW FROM BIGBOARD

I posted 2 vids 1 on Fallschirmjaeger and 1 on Ukraine 44. The Third is a quick comment on whats up next…after being all sweaty. You know where to find my stuff.

On the blog this week: - One Hundred Unorthodox Strategies — #5: The Infantry — 1 August - Winter War: The Game That Wins the War Finland Lost — 29 July

SUSTAINMENT — The Full Roundup

Everything that dropped this week, by channel. 62 videos across 24 channels — alphabetical, no ranking.

ASL Academy - Advanced Squad Leader RSS - Episode 52 - Morale System Discussion — 309 views · 51 min · WWII

Battlefield Banter - Combat Commander Mediterranean , by GMT Games, Scenario 21, Episode 3 : the grand finale! — 61 views · 48 min · WWII

Big Board Gaming - rock paper…no scissors:) — 18 views · 2 min - ukraine ’44- turn 4 /1 — 209 views · 2 min - Fallschirmjaeger /10 — 290 views · 2 min · WWII

Bill Needels (Punched) - Sicily II - Airsick? — 20 views · 16 min · WWII - Sicily II - Western Sicily Turn 2 — 49 views · 17 min · WWII - Panzer Battles - Germans Defend without 11th Panzer This Activation (T4A7) — 44 views · 7 min · WWII - Holland ’44 - Link-up at Eindhoven and Cutoff at Valkenswaard (Southern #2 Turn 3) — 49 views · 8 min · WWII - Sicily II - G4 Ever (Western Sicily Turn 1) — 39 views · 14 min · WWII - Panzer Battles - Soviet Full Court Press (T4A6) — 92 views · 9 min · WWII - Western Sicily - Sunday Drive (pregame) — 156 views · 7 min · WWII

Calandale > Note (curation): All wargames, but he editorializes politically - SCREEN his picks, skip the political ones. - Elric Kingdoms — 146 views · 49 min - Elric Empires — 211 views · 78 min - Elric Successor — 232 views · 31 min - Elric Dragon Masters v Usurper — 166 views · 94 min - Elric Bright Empire — 185 views · 14 min - Elric intro — 561 views · 105 min - Mr President review — 1,128 views · 50 min - Mr President 2020b & wrap — 147 views · 116 min

Cardboard Commander - Zone Of Control Podcast | Episode — 365 views · 32 min

Category Solo - The Far Seas - Unboxing & First Look - VUCA Simulations — 140 views · 18 min

Gaming with ER Bickford - Nine Years War Part 3 — 7 views · 15 min - Nine Years War Part 2 — 15 views · 9 min - Nine Years War Part 1 — 27 views · 13 min - Fire & Movement 60 — 21 views · 6 min - SD69 May3 — 13 views · 27 min - Alexandros Command 10 Magazine — 50 views · 17 min - Moves Magazine 95 — 25 views · 7 min

Hexed And Countered - The Far Seas (Vuca Simulations) | Solo Gameplay Part 1 — 108 views · 36 min - August 2026 Content Preview — 546 views · 6 min - Napoleon at War - Deluxe Edition (Decision Games) | Marengo Gameplay Part 2 — 270 views · 82 min · Napoleonic - Rebels Against Rebellion (Flying Pig Games) - Preview — 321 views · 27 min - Napoleon at War - Deluxe Edition (Decision Games) | Marengo Gameplay — 722 views · 52 min · Napoleonic

John Maag - Learning Charlie’s Year - Campaign Prep — 129 views · 95 min

Justegarde - New Arrival - Tankschlacht (Revolution Games) — 652 views · 10 min

Meandering Mike - Avoid Overseas Surprises When Buying Games - A Walk and Talk — 97 views · 26 min

MMP Not Dead Yet - We’re Not Dead Yet Ep 46 feat Nick Roser and Line of Battle! — 1,212 views · 54 min

Pushing Cardboard - Live Cardboard 37 - Shayne Logan Interview — 211 views · 36 min

RvT (Dickie) - 08 Let’s Play Rule the Waves 3 | Coastal Cruiser Battle — 248 views · 38 min - 06 + 07 Let’s Play Rule the Waves 3 Italy | Big Victory + Not So Much — 1,016 views · 54 min

Seek Out and Play - Three Types of Print Wargames — 112 views · 4 min - S4E7: “The Rulebook Revolution” Speak Out & Play - July 2026 — 80 views · 23 min

The Discriminating Gamer (Cody Carlson) - TDG: Sniper Elite: Operation Kraken unboxing with Ray — 210 views · 9 min - TDG: Midway Solitaire — 1,822 views · 12 min - TDG: The Mandalorian: Adventures - Sworn to the Creed unboxing with Ray — 595 views · 12 min - TDG: Enemies of Gotham City — 2,200 views · 19 min - TDG: Star Trek: Captain’s Chair - Second Contact unboxing with Ray — 567 views · 11 min - TDG: Cody’s Top Ten IP Fantasy Games (July 2026) — 5,599 views · 16 min - TDG: Tarawa 1943 Solitaire unboxing with Ray — 918 views · 8 min · WWII

The Players Aid - Review | Imperial Elegy: Solo Bots | VUCA Simulations | The Players’ Aid — 884 views · 17 min - Unboxing | Baltic Empires | GMT Games | The Players’ Aid — 1,151 views · 14 min - Review | Battles of the AmRev: Oriskany & Freeman’s Farm | Worthington | The Players’ Aid — 796 views · 25 min

TheGimpyGamer - Kingdom Dungeon Hero Review — 245 views · 13 min

Tony’s Board Life - Fields of Fire 2 Peleliu Mission 1 Part 2 — 138 views · 31 min

WARdROBE - Holland 44 Short Campaign Thoughts — 50 views · 18 min · WWII - Old School Tactical East Front scenario 1 done! — 148 views · 6 min

Wayne Hansen - Let’s Play! Early Threatens Washington: The Battle of Monocacy Junction, July 9 1864 | SOLO GAMEPLAY — 115 views · 82 min · AWI

Wiseguy History - Space Imperia 4x [PC version of GMT’s Space Empires 4x] — 1,244 views · 58 min

Zilla Blitz - Monthly Update - Wargame Complexity | SDHistCon | Wargaming & Board Games Channel Update | Aug 2026 — 5,124 views · 33 min - 82nd Airborne Panzer Corps 2 Elite All American Gameplay | DLC | PC WW2 Wargame | Part 2 — 1,590 views · 48 min · WWII - Rebels Against Rebellion Overview | Board Wargames | Board Games | Flying Pig Games — 2,599 views · 18 min

Serval had just popped the cork of another bottle, and was taking a victorious swig, when the sound of svelte motors, the BMW fast motorcycles could be heard racing down the road to the bridges.

The first round riccocheted off the hull of the Hotchkiss H35 shattering the bottle as Serval stood in teh cupola. The stream of bullets following destroyed Servals smug face and body as it danced a jig of death from the hot MG 34 swivel mounted on the BMW side cars. Frenchman dove for cover.

Then the Sd. Kfx 222’s opened up catching all the French unawares. German paras, leapt up to secure guns and find cover.

The violence of action shocked the celebration right of the the three comapnies of Frenchemen who promptly downed guns, tools and bottles surrendering enmass.

So much for the French relief.

9th Panzer was here, and they had business to attend to. Released Fallschirmjaeger, rounded up, and bound the hapless French while the lead recon elements of the 9th continued on and raced across the bridge down the road to its detiny.

The tanks were coming

But is it too late?

Three days ago, the mused, he had been joking with Hans and Stephan, as they checked and rechecked harnesses for the drop gear. A dozen of them, smiling and preparing to jump from a perfectly good plane, they all laughed, it was only the one hundredth time it had been said. The Ju-52 had never once failed to put them where they needed, it was as reliable as clockwork.

Weapons loaded, extra ammo and rations for three days. The cavernous hold of the Ju-52 plane was something they had all grown to be comfortable in. The jumping was not quiet second nature however. Karl no longer wanted to shit himself before he leapt out, his knees did not betray him any more. Plus he didn’t piss himself like Hans. Poor bastard. He was after all a qualified Fallschirmjäger. He had respect of the regulars, the admiration of teh fraus. He and the Luftlandsoldat, are one of a kind, he fondled the hawk and swastika badge, elite indeed. Glancing out the sixth window of the fuselage, he knew this was really happening, as more planes taxied into place. They would fly over Holland drop near Den Haag, take the Dutch out of the war rapidly, Holland would be a push over. The airfield was lightly defended, they had said.

The cacophany of zings, pings, and the enoumouse booms of Dutch arty brought him back to the present. He stared at Hans’s lifeless eyes. He had not died well in the last attack these mad Dutchmen had done. Pinned down there was nothing Karl could do for him, except hold his hand, and protect him as best he could. Looking out to the airfield he saw the wreckage of a string Ju-52’s some still aflame. Two more inbound. Yes the AA had been a bit rough for the troopers that para-dropped here, but we had silenced that. He watche dteh first one descend, would it fair better than the others? In it came, the ground grabs the wheels, wrenching, the aircraft slews, cartwheels, breaking up, its engine explodes, no one exits.
The second plane can’t stop.
Broken struts, wheels axle deep, bent propellers. Supplies cooking off. The area laden with the dead and dying. The ground was too soft for the heavy payloads, the drizzling rain incessant.

“Where are the tanks, Hans my friend where?” Karl glanced over to where Stephan was also hunkered down. ‘Wo sind die Panzer? Stephan!’ Stephan shrugged his shoulders, chanced a glance over the rubble. Then replied ‘Nicht mehr lange, Nicht mehr lange!!’ He laughed. Karl smiled, not long indeed. However he was down to one magazine for his MP, and had long ago run out of grenades. Their Zug was a shell now. Barely two squads left out of the platoon. Their two MG 34 were saving ammo for the next counter attack. Karl had scavenged Han’s rifle grenades.

Someone called out. “Here they come.” The arty lifted, and through the rubble of buildings, came another company sized element of Dutch fighters, as equally battered as we were. Hard men, solid men. Grim, determined, they had this war thrust upon them. We asked for it, and got more in the bargain. They had not yet folded.

The MG chattered, forcing them to scatter for cover. Others fired back at that problem, Stephan called out ‘reloading’, Karl saw the arcing blob of awell thrown grenade, descending upon him. Diving to one side the blast projected him through the air. Stunned, Karl fumbled for the grenade launcher, determined to ward off the attack and allow Stephan time to finish his reload.

Fire burned his left side.
Pain lanced his body.
The recoil of his last rifle grenade forced a gasp from him. Looking down, several dark patches were slowly spreading across his uniform.

Darkness.

He awoke to the agonizing jostling of his body upon a stretcher. Stephan had a bandaged face, but was grinning down at him as they bounced along. ‘You slept through our war Karl.’ He said, ‘and now we carry you off to be prisoners of war!’ On the stretcher a sound reaches him he can’t place at first — low, grinding, from the south. Tracks. He turns his head. Stephan follows his eyes. “Nicht für uns,” he says. Not for us.
Confused Karl tried to sit up, but was stopped by pain.

‘Relax, my friend. For us the war is over unless those tanks arrive! We surrendered. ‘

Karl looked up at the sky. The sun was now out, but the sky was empty.

Not a Junkers in sight.

Four currents this week from the data crawl and analytics.

1. WBC week. The World Boardgaming Championships kicked off at Seven Springs. Half the hobby is either there or watching from home, so expect the next fortnight’s videos and blogs to be thick with con reports and table shots. The Players’ Aid are on the road to it, and MMP’s crew are talking it up. For me, I have mixed feelings about going. Lots of nostalgia competition play, I mean how many times can you be crowned #1 The Russian Campaign player? But it is or was the definitive place for competitive play, and ranking. Just not my jam.

I go to play #rolldice and drinks some brews with new and old friends. I need to go, just to say I did. It remains a very popular event, that involves more than just wargaming.

2. Peak release season? The new-game conveyor is running flat out: Cuius Regio (GMT’s Thirty Years War), Fall of Berlin (Legion), that arrived a few months ago.. new toi me!, Fallschirmjager [on the table here] and No Turning Back (MMP),[Would love some feedback on V3 rules!] The Far Seas and Imperial Elegy (VUCA), Tankschlacht (Cambrai), Baltic Empires (GMT). If you’ve a wishlist, its shipping!.

3. The review conversation went wide. The “what is a review actually for” question kept spreading past this channel. Cardboard Commander wrote a whole piece off it (and was kind enough to name where it started), and TheGimpyGamer dug into the Players’ Aid’s own take on what reviews are and aren’t. Good to see the hobby chewing on it out loud.

4. American Civil War still going strong. Gilbert Collins is deep in a Blue & Gray replay run, GCACW is getting narrative treatment, Roads to Gettysburg got a rematch, and Three Days of Gettysburg landed a deluxe edition. If you game blue-and-gray, this was your week. For the second week in a row 9% of all posted vids.

MISSION — Featured Picks: Video

Zilla Blitz — Upcoming Wargames + Giveaway, July 2026 The monthly state-of-the-industry pass: what’s in production, from print-and-play up to the big boxes, publisher by publisher. If you want a single video to know what’s coming, this is it. (Noble Knight are sponsoring, and doubled the store-credit giveaway this month.) 11.5k views · 23 min —

Hexed & Countered — The Far Seas (VUCA) | First Look Joe walks the box on VUCA’s new The Far Seas, German cruiser operations at the opening of WWI, 1914. You run the eight great commerce raiders scattered from China to the Caribbean while a far larger Allied fleet hunts you down. Solitaire-friendly, single-ship scale. Designed by Martin Anderson and Julius Brunkow. 1.7k views · 31 min —

Ardwulf’s Lair — Cuius Regio: The Thirty Years’ War | Unboxing GMT’s brand-new Cuius Regio (1618–1648, designed by Francisco Gradaille) gets the box treatment. A gorgeous two-map production on a period we almost never get gamed at this level. Complexity 5, solitaire suitability 6. (One I’m on the table with myself right now.) 2.3k views · 11 min —

MMP Not Dead Yet — Ep 45: WBC This Week The WBC preview from the MMP crew, and a warm one: Brian’s back in the chair after major heart surgery (a bypass and a valve). Good to see him upright and talking games. They run down what to look for at the championships. 1.3k views · 23 min —

Wayne Hansen — Midway Solitaire (Worthington) | Mission 6 + Mini-Review Wayne takes Worthington’s pocket-sized Midway Solitaire and goes straight for the throat: Mission 6, sink all three Japanese task forces, the hardest in the box. Play-through plus an honest mini-review at the end. (He notes the copy was a review copy from Worthington.) 623 views · 42 min —

Category Solo — Straubing West | World at War ’85 A tight solo battle report from the Storm & Steel wave: West German Panzergrenadiers holding two towns against a Czech tank regiment rolling in on T-72s. Cold-War-gone-hot at a size you can actually finish in a sitting. 403 views · 11 min —

Gilbert Collins — Blue & Gray: Battle of the Wilderness Chapter 4 of Gilbert’s Blue & Gray Deluxe replay series, and his own fourth-favorite of the quad: the Wilderness, 1864, forests and trained-defense and all. He also dropped Shiloh and Fredericksburg this week, so there’s a whole ACW binge waiting if you want it. 622 views · 30 min —

The Players’ Aid — Nostalgia | Monthly Debrief (June) Alexander and Grant’s monthly sit-down, this time on nostalgia in the hobby: mostly a good thing, they argue, but a force that can quietly hold the hobby in place too. A thoughtful hour if you like the meta side. 4.6k views · 90 min —

SIGNAL — Under the Radar

The Tabletop’s Edge — The Civil War (GCACW) Narrative, Ch.1: “All Green Alike” A upcoming smaller channel doing something worth your click: a deliberately narrative run through Great Campaigns of the American Civil War, July 1861. He skips the rules-minutiae on purpose to let the story the system generates come forward, dice rolls and all. If you believe a wargame is a story engine first, this is your kind of playthrough. Give him a look. 253 views · 24 min · ACW —

MISSION — BLOG: Featured Posts

· Cardboard Commander — “Game Reviews: Helpful Intel or Just More Tabletop Noise?” The review conversation, picked up and run with. — https://cardboardcommander.com/2026/07/25/game-reviews-helpful-intel-or-just-more-tabletop-noise/

· The Boardgames Chronicle — Baltic Empires (GMT) overview. A 2–5 player strategic game on the Northern Wars, 1558–1721 — the Baltic from the fall of the Teutonic Order to the Great Northern War. — https://theboardgameschronicle.com/2026/07/24/baltic-empires-the-northern-wars-of-1558-1721-game-overview/

· The Players’ Aid — Interview: Akar Bharadvaj on Chalice of Poison (Iran-Iraq War, GMT). Designer talk on an under-gamed modern conflict. — https://theplayersaid.com/2026/07/20/interview-with-akar-bharadvaj-designer-of-chalice-of-poison-the-iran-iraq-war-1980-1988-from-gmt-games/

· The Boardgames Chronicle — Three Days of Gettysburg: Deluxe. The 1995 GCACW-adjacent classic, redone. — https://theboardgameschronicle.com/2026/07/19/three-days-of-gettysburg-deluxe-edition-unboxing-overview/

SUSTAINMENT — The Full Roundup

Everything that dropped this week, by channel.

Ardwulf’s Lair - UNBOXING | Line of Battle | No Turning Back (MMP 2026) — 1,281 views · 10 min - UNBOXING | Cuius Regio: The Thirty Years’ War (GMT 2026) — 2,271 views · 11 min - Deadhouse Landing — 400 views · 1 min

Armchair Dragoons - #CNXONL26 What is shared situational awareness — 1 views · 1 min

Battlefield Banter - Combat Commander from #gmtgames , Scenario 21, from the Mediterranean expansion, Episode 2 — 39 views · 94 min - Paths of Glory by @GMTGames Episode 4. — 29 views · 11 min

Big Board Gaming - Fallschirmjaeger Top of Turn9 — 342 views · 2 min - Reviews. What matters? — 367 views · 11 min - you caulked what? — 553 views · 2 min

Bill Needels (Punched) - Panzer Battles - 11th Panzer Down on the Farm (T4A5) #ww2 #wargaming — 16 views · 9 min - Sicily II - Gela Counterattack (Hello OCS World) #ww2 #wargaming — 107 views · 35 min - Panzer Battles - 5th Mech Entry and Plotting (T4A4) #ww2 #wargaming #mmp — 35 views · 37 min - Holland ’44 - Hurrah! and Oops? (Southern #2 Turn 2) #ww2 #wargaming #gmtgames #marketgarden — 81 views · 13 min - Panzer Battles - 11th Panzer Hunting Soviet Armor and VPs (T4A3) #ww2 #wargaming — 29 views · 11 min - Panzer Battles - 11th Panzer Heads for the Hills, in a Good Way #ww2 #wargaming — 70 views · 7 min - Panzer Battles - Soviets Capture Nizhne-Chirskaya (T4A1) #ww2 #mmp #wargaming — 125 views · 13 min - …plus 1 more from this channel

Calandale - Mr President 2020a — 128 views · 105 min - Spiderlight book discussion — 56 views · 11 min - Divine Right review — 482 views · 44 min - Divine Right 4 & wrap — 149 views · 102 min - Divine Right 3 — 210 views · 100 min - Divine Right 2 — 237 views · 113 min - Divine Right 1 — 395 views · 61 min - …plus 3 more from this channel

Cardboard Commander - Zone Of Control Podcast | Episode #69 — 403 views · 23 min

Category Solo - Straubing West - World at War ’85 Solo Battle Report — 403 views · 11 min

Chewie Matt - Mistral 1744 45 — 85 views · 13 min

Gaming with ER Bickford - Fire & Movement 54 — 12 views · 5 min - Channel Update July 24th 2026! — 39 views · 6 min - No Peace Without Honor Part 5 Conclusion — 13 views · 10 min - No Peace Without Honor Part 4 — 17 views · 8 min - Moves Magazine 92 — 18 views · 8 min - No Peace Without Honor Part 3 — 22 views · 10 min - 1969 San Diego Statis Pro April 21 vs Atlanta — 9 views · 22 min - …plus 3 more from this channel

Gilbert Collins - Chapter 6 - Blue & Gray Quad Replays - Fredericksburg — 347 views · 32 min - Chapter 5 - Blue & Gray Replays - Shiloh — 461 views · 18 min - Chapter 4 - Blue & Gray Quad Replays - Battle of the Wilderness — 622 views · 30 min

Hex to Hex - GD 41 Initial Air and Artillery Strikes — 224 views · 5 min

Hexed And Countered - Fallschirmjaeger (MMP) | First Look — 759 views · 19 min - Fall of Berlin: The End of the Thousand-Year Reich (Legion) | Gameplay — 516 views · 47 min - Tankschlacht (Revolution Games) | First Look — 850 views · 14 min - The Far Seas (Vuca Simulations) | First Look — 1,731 views · 31 min

Matt White Wargames - One of the best Learn to Play Books - Hunt for Blackbeard — 116 views · 15 min

MMP Not Dead Yet - We’re Not Dead Yet Ep 45 - WBC THIS WEEK! — 1,284 views · 23 min

My Own Worst Enemy - And The War Came Part 1 - Introduction/Turn 1 — 181 views · 53 min

Nangwaya - War Summary For July 19th, 1918. — 12 views · 13 min

Patrick’s Tactics & Tutorials - Roads to Gettysburg II - Scenario #1 - Meade Moves North - REMATCH, part 1 — 282 views · 74 min - Combat Commander: Mediterranean - Scenario 21 - Saint Agatha — 253 views · 54 min

Pushing Cardboard - Early Threatens Washington Unboxing — 172 views · 13 min - Tankschlacht Cambrai 1917 Unboxing — 395 views · 12 min

Seek Out and Play - Gunslinger: Horses — 83 views · 4 min

The Discriminating Gamer (Cody Carlson) - TDG: Star Wars: The Deckbuilding Game - Rebels & Empire Reinforcements Expansion — 1,489 views · 10 min - TDG: The Witcher: Old World — 1,300 views · 13 min - G.I. JOE: Operation Cobra - All-In Pledge unboxing with Ray — 608 views · 57 min - TDG: Cody’s Top Ten Games Set in Japan (July 2026) — 1,141 views · 11 min - TDG: Duel of Meloch unboxing — 613 views · 15 min - TDG: Star Trek: Captain’s Chair - To Boldly Go unboxing with Ray — 759 views · 22 min - TDG: Mysterium — 699 views · 7 min

The Players Aid - Unboxing | Warfighter: War | DVG | The Players’ Aid — 601 views · 18 min - Review | Imperial Elegy | VUCA Simulations | The Players’ Aid — 2,439 views · 82 min - Unboxing | Battles Of- Travel Games | Worthington | The Players’ Aid — 684 views · 12 min - Nostalgia | Monthly Debrief - S6E6 | June 2026 | The Players’ Aid — 4,624 views · 90 min

The Tabletop’s Edge - The Civil War A (GCACW) Narrative Chapter 1: All Green Alike 15-16JULY 1861 — 253 views · 24 min

the2halfsquads - T2HS 389: Sledge Sisters Ride Again — 96 views · 52 min

TheGimpyGamer - The Players Aid Talks About What Review Are and Are Not — 220 views · 30 min - Escape From Project Riese Review — 142 views · 43 min

Tony’s Board Life - Fields of Fire 2 Peleliu Mission 1 Part 1 — 332 views · 38 min - Three Days of Gettysburg Unboxing — 138 views · 15 min

WARdROBE - OST East Front Scenario 1 - one turn to go! — 12 views · 1 min - Operation Mercury (1992 @GMTGames ) just getting started #wargame #history #ww2 — 141 views · 1 min - Scenario 1 Turn 1 East Front Old School Tactical by @flyingpiggamespublishing #aar #ww2 #wargames — 138 views · 1 min - Old School Tactical East Front Vo1 2ed Training scenario setup #ww2 #wargaming #boardgames — 182 views · 2 min - ASLSK Decision at Elst Scn 2 - set up planning. #wargame #ww2 #marketgarden — 251 views · 2 min - VITW Race 4 Messina Turn 3 S&T magazine game #wargames #wargamer #wargamesrules — 180 views · 2 min - VITW Race For Messina 1981 S&T US invasion over — 224 views · 6 min - …plus 1 more from this channel

Wayne Hansen - Recon! Early Threatens Washington: The Battle of Monocacy Junction, July 9 1864 | Preview — 183 views · 25 min - Let’s Play! Midway Solitaire (Worthington) | WW2 | Mission 6 (IMPOSSIBLE) & Mini-Review — 623 views · 42 min

Zilla Blitz - Heirs to Olympus Overview & Impressions | Board Wargames | Board Games | Jackl Games — 722 views · 14 min - 82nd Airborne Panzer Corps 2 Elite All American Gameplay | DLC | PC WW2 Wargame | Part 1 — 2,683 views · 50 min - Upcoming Wargames + Giveaway | July 2026 | New Releases | Board Games — 11,487 views · 23 min

Blogs

The Players Aid - World Boardgaming Championships 2026 Daily Debrief Series — 2026-07-25 - From Cover to Cover: The Napoleonic Wars: A Global History – Alexander Mikaberidze — 2026-07-24 - My Favorite Wargame Cards – A Look at Individual Cards from My Favorite Games – Card #87: Proletarian Revolution from The Republic’s Struggle: Battle for the Republic, Spain 1931-1939 from NAC Wargames — 2026-07-23 - History Behind the Cards – A Look at Checkpoint Charlie from GMT Games – Card #3: Demonstrations — 2026-07-22 - June 2026 Monthly Debrief Video – Nostalgia — 2026-07-21 - Interview with Akar Bharadvaj Designer of Chalice of Poison: The Iran-Iraq War, 1980-1988 from GMT Games — 2026-07-20 - Unboxing Video: Vendée 93 from Fellowship of Simulations — 2026-07-19 - Unboxing Video: SPQR: The Battle of Alesia 52 BC from Art of Wargames — 2026-07-18

Cardboard Commander - Game Reviews: Helpful Intel or Just More Tabletop Noise? — 2026-07-25 - Save 8% on Your Next Cube4Me Order! — 2026-07-18 - Operation Cardboard Is a GO! — 2026-07-18

PAXsims - Looking after Eden — 2026-07-21 - PGS wargaming courses — 2026-07-21 - Wargaming Conference AWL 2026 registration open — 2026-07-21

The Boardgames Chronicle - Baltic Empires: The Northern Wars of 1558-1721 – Game Overview — 2026-07-24 - Three Days of Gettysburg: Deluxe Edition – Unboxing & Overview — 2026-07-19

Grymauch’s Solo Wargaming Blog - TBW Miniature Flags — 2026-07-23 - Pony Wars: The Homestead Turns 1 - 8. — 2026-07-19

Sgt Steiner’s Wargaming Blog - They Died For Glory gets an outing — 2026-07-24

If you know a Youtuber/channel that needs covering drop me an email bigboardgaming@gmail.com, same if you would like your channel covered, wargame bloggers welcome also!

The Situation

If the community had one flag flying this week, it was the American Civil War. It was everywhere and at every scale: Gilbert Collins and Tabletops Edge both launched long-haul series (the Blue & Gray quads and a full GCACW narrative), Patrick and Roger pushed deeper into Roads to Gettysburg II, Seek Out and Play dug into Blue & Gray entrenchments, and the blogs kept pace with a Three Days of Gettysburg deluxe unboxing. If you play blue-and-gray, this was your week.

Underneath that ran a heavy release-and-preview season, and its center of gravity is unmistakably GMT. Hexed & Countered’s first look at North Africa ‘40 (the desert-war expansion behind our own Operation Compass work, more on that soon) was the marquee unbox, but Zilla Blitz’s monthly roundup is the real map of what’s coming: a new hidden-movement Recon series, the much-anticipated Weimar Republic, single-sitting front-in-a-box designs from Worthington, and a raft of Compass, Revolution, Vuca and Vae Victis titles. The Players’ Aid, meanwhile, ran an unboxing-and-interview tear all week (Vendée 93, SPQR: Alesia, Congress of Vienna, Next War: Iran).

Two quieter currents are worth flagging. The First World War is stirring Cambrai at Pushing Cardboard, The Lamps Are Going Out at My Own Worst Enemy, a lethal Trench Raid at Cardboard Commander, and Falling Crescent on the horizon. And there’s an odd little Iran/Persia cluster surfacing at once: Next War: Iran, the Chalice of Poison Iran–Iraq designer interview, and Paul Musgrave’s geopolitics essay on the Strait of Hormuz.

But the loudest thing this week wasn’t a game at all it was an argument about reviews themselves. The Players’ Aid published a manifesto on what a wargame review is and isn’t; the conversation rippled outward (this channel’s own “Reviews. What matters?” landed in the same stretch). When the hobby stops to argue about how it talks about games, that’s usually a sign it’s healthy and growing.

Mission — Featured Picks: Video

Zilla Blitz — Upcoming Wargames + Giveaway — July 2026

9,644 views · 450 comments · watch

The month’s most-watched video and a genuine pulse-check on the pipeline. Zilla walks the release board across publishers: GMT’s Coast Watchers (the new hidden-movement Recon series), the Weimar Republic (1,800+ pre-orders), and the Levy & Campaign solo-bot system; Compass’s WWI Falling Crescent and the Marianas CSS tri-pack; Revolution’s Tankschlacht Cambrai 1917 and Early Threatens Washington (Blind Swords #13); Worthington’s single-sitting Russia ’41 and Germany ’45; plus crowdfunders A More Perfect Union and Politique, and Vuca’s Pacific Fleet. Sponsored, with a $100 Noble Knight giveaway.

Hexed & Countered — North Africa ’40 (GMT) — First Look

3,527 views · 9 comments · watch

Joe unboxes Mark Simonitch’s just-arrived expansion to the 4X desert series — a ziploc, not a box, and it requires North Africa ’41. It pushes the war back to the 1940–41 Italian invasion and Operation Compass, with a meaty 48-page rulebook, dedicated O’Connor and Rommel special markers, Italian demoralization-and-collapse rules, and a notable return to the series-standard ZOC-bond rules. He’s a fan of the series and promises gameplay to follow. (Of note to us: this is the very game and campaign behind our Operation Compass work.)

Gilbert Collins — Blue & Gray Quads — Replay: Antietam, Part 1

2,209 views · 10 comments · watch

The launch of a long-haul series: Gilbert will play through all eight games in the Blue & Gray Deluxe Edition ACW quad, in personal-preference order rather than chronological, opening with a favorite — Antietam. Playthroughs, not reviews; he’s running the exclusive rules per module plus the attacker-effectiveness optional rule.

Tabletops Edge — The Civil War: A GCACW Narrative — Ch.1 Prologue

1,208 views · 10 comments · watch

Another ambitious ACW series opener. This one narrates the entire Civil War through Great Campaigns of the American Civil War, one campaign per chapter, each led by a prologue setting the map situation, historical background, and both sides’ plans before play begins.

Stuka Joe — Campaigns of 1777 — Preview

819 views · 8 comments · watch

A components-and-rules preview of the strategic War of Independence game bundled with Strategy & Tactics #316 — the 1777 northern-colonies campaign at roughly 20 miles to the inch and two weeks a turn, point-to-point, medium complexity and medium solo suitability.

Ardwulf’s Lair — Unboxing — First Republic / Première République (Vae Victis)

807 views · 8 comments · watch

Ardwulf opens Adrien Dobb’s card-driven French Revolutionary Wars game (the War of the First Coalition), a bilingual Vae Victis folio magazine-game following up his recent designer interview with Dobb on the channel.

ASL Academy — Advanced Squad Leader — Bypass Movement Example

705 views · 20 comments · watch

A clean teaching video (with a companion website article) walking through infantry bypass movement in ASL how it lets an encircled squad slip a pocket and rejoin its platoon, and why it transforms the battlefield versus traditional movement. A nod that starter-kit players don’t get the tool, which makes the case for graduating to the full game.

Cardboard Commander — Zone of Control Podcast #68

430 views · 22 comments · watch

Recorded on the road from Albuquerque. Jerry’s headline is a refreshed top-10 favorite solo games (six titles changed since the last list), wrapped around an AAR of a brutal Trench Raid (WWI) session and a rulebook breakdown of A Most Fearful Sacrifice (Gettysburg).

Patrick’s Tactics & Tutorials — Roads to Gettysburg II, Scn #1 — Meade Moves North, Pt.2

396 views · 17 comments · watch

A 95-minute opposed continuation (with Roger) of the first scenario of Roads to Gettysburg II, picking up at turn 3. Worth noting for the newshounds: they mention GMT’s imminent pre-order of the dual GCACW package Stonewall in the Valley + Sheridan in the Shenandoah, which Roger has been playtesting.

Signal- New to WARNO: Channel Spotlight

A welcome addition to the roundup. Hex to Hex covers Napoleonic, ancient and WWII hex play with a patient, teaching bent. He posts regularly and was simply between videos this week, so here are two recent picks worth your time.

Hex to Hex: Fuentes de Oñoro (Part 1)

523 views · watch:

An intro and playthrough of Terry Doughty’s Fuentes de Oñoro, the new title in the Glory & Empire series. Playing the opening scenario head to head against himself, he unpacks the game’s order driven command system: a corps commander (Loison, 6th Corps) issues one order to a division commander, and every brigade inside that division’s command range executes it automatically. It is a clean, readable model of Napoleonic command friction. Peninsular War, 1811.

Hex to Hex: Late Attack (Part 2)

910 views · watch:

His most watched recent video carries the fight into Fuentes de Oñoro village itself. The French 6th Corps rolls a division into the British line and wrecks it, then the Brits counter with battalions held back in reserve. It is the assault and counter assault grind that defined the real battle, where, as the designer’s own notes stress, you only take an objective by assaulting for it. Plenty of disorder, broken units, and morale swinging both ways.

Sustainment- VIDEO: The Full Roundup

Zilla Blitz - Upcoming Wargames + Giveaway | July 2026 | New Releases | Board Games — 9,644 views · 23 min - 82nd Airborne Panzer Corps 2 Elite All American Gameplay | DLC | PC WW2 Wargame | Part 1 — 1,426 views · 50 min

Hexed And Countered - North Africa ’40 (GMT Games) | First Look — 3,527 views · 18 min - July 2026 | New Wargame Arrivals — 2,338 views · 11 min - The Far Seas (Vuca Simulations) | First Look — 897 views · 31 min - Flying Fortresses - B-17 Missions Over Europe (Worthington) | Gameplay: Missions #2 & #3 — 663 views · 27 min - Wrath of the Wyvern: Sons of Rivesk (Lion Banner Games) | First Look — 164 views · 31 min - Tankschlacht (Revolution Games) | First Look — 164 views · 14 min

Gilbert Collins - Blue & Gray Quads - Replay - Antietam Part 1 — 2,209 views · 16 min - Blue & Gray Quads - Antietam play through part 2 — 556 views · 6 min - Chickamauga Replay - Part 2 of the Blue & Gray Play test series — 524 views · 9 min - Chapter 3 of Blue & Gray Quad Replays - Chattanooga — 411 views · 23 min - Chapter 4 of Blue & Gray Quad Replays - Battle of the Wilderness — 40 views · 30 min

Tabletops Edge - The Civil War: A (GCACW) Narrative Chapter 1: All Green Alike Prologue — 1,208 views · 25 min

Stuka Joe - Campaigns of 1777 Preview Video — 819 views · 32 min

Ardwulf’s Lair - UNBOXING | First Republic: The War of the First Coalition (Vae Victis 2025) — 807 views · 7 min - UNBOXING | Old School Tactical vol. 5 Battle for France 1940 + First to Fight Poland 1939 — 727 views · 17 min

Advanced Squad Leader Acadamy Play - Advanced Squad Leader - Bypass Movement Example — 705 views · 9 min - Advanced Squad Leader RSS Livestream! - Episode 51 — 325 views · 92 min

Cardboard Commander - Zone Of Control Podcast | Episode #68 — 430 views · 34 min

Patrick’s Tactics & Tutorials - Roads to Gettysburg II - Scenario #1 - Meade Moves North, part 2 — 396 views · 95 min - Combat Commander: Mediterranean - Scenario 21 - Saint Agatha — 141 views · 54 min

Pushing Cardboard - Tankschlacht Cambrai 1917 Unboxing — 337 views · 12 min - Early Threatens Washington Unboxing — 107 views · 13 min

MMP Not Dead Yet - We’re Not Dead Yet Ep 45 - WBC THIS WEEK! — 336 views · 23 min

Big Board Gaming - Reviews. What matters? — 283 views · 11 min

TheGimpyGamer - Headquarters Cold War Review — 228 views · 66 min - Leviathans The Great War Review — 176 views · 42 min

Bill Needels (Punched) - Holland ’44 - Southern Scenario - British and 101st Move Towards Eindhoven (T2) — 185 views · 9 min - Holland ’44 - Southern Scenario - Action at Eindhoven (T3) — 178 views · 15— 141 views · 8 min - Holland ’44 - Southern Scenario - 30 Corps Links Up with 101st (T4) — 92 views · 11 min - Panzer Battles - Halftime and Play Aids — 89 views · 23 min - Panzer Battles - Soviets Capture Nizhne-Chirskaya (T4A1) — 77 views · 13 min - Holland ’44 - Southern Scenario - Turn 5 Wrap and Analysis #ww2 #wargaming #gmtgames — 58 views · 11 min - Panzer Battles - 11th Panzer Heads for the Hills, in a Good Way — 34 views · 7 min

Camp Sawyer - Shiloh First Day - An Introduction and Learning scenario — 174 views · 30 min

Calandale - Mr President Scenario Book — 170 views · 76 min - Astra Titanus review — 109 views · 15 min - Delta V intro — 97 views · 24 min - Astra Titanus Colonial Troubles — 54 views · 43 min - Delta V solo mess — 44 views · 56 min - Astra Titanus Heros Pyre — 40 views · 32 min - Astra Titanus DSIT — 32 views · 39 min - Astra Titanus Final Countdown — 16 views · 46 min

Matt White Wargames - On the Table - Dog Boats - Solitaire WW2 wargame — 156 views · 16 min - Hunt for Blackbeard Unboxing & First Impressions — 105 views · 21 min - One of the best Learn to Play Books - Hunt for Blackbeard — 25 views · 15 min

WARdROBE - VITW Race For Messina 1981 S&T US invasion over — 153 views · 6 min - Baptism By Fire BCS Campaign Reset — 147 views · 1 min - VITW Sicily Messina US Landings Scenario Turn 1 — 146 views · 13 min - Big Boy goes through St Louis Webster Groves — 17 views · 0 min

Seek Out and Play - Blue & Gray Deluxe Edition: Entrenchments — 127 views · 3 min

Tony’s Board Life - Three Days of Gettysburg Unboxing — 107 views · 15 min

My Own Worst Enemy - The Lamps Are Going Out Turn 17-Fall 1918 and Final Thoughts — 102 views · 32 min

Battlefield Banter - Combat Commander , Mediterranean. Scenario 21 St.Agatha — 82 views · 83 min

Gaming with ER Bickford - No Peace Without Honor Part 1 — 55 views · 8 min - Koeniggratz S&T 275 — 53 views · 15 min - No Peace Without Honor Part 2 — 29 views · 10 min - Moves Magazine 90 — 29 views · 10 min - Moves Magazine 88 — 27 views · 9 min - Fire & Movement 52 — 21 views · 4 min - Fire & Movement 53 — 12 views · 7 min - 1969 San Diego Statis Pro April 21 vs Atlanta — 3 views · 22 min

the2halfsquads - T2HS 389: Sledge Sisters Ride Again — 46 views · 52 min

Meandering Mike - Life, Health and Louisbourg - A Walk and Talk — 42 views · 48 min

Chewie Matt - Mistral 1744 45 — 12 views · 13 min

BLOG — The Read

The blogs echoed the video week and sharpened it. The Players’ Aid carried the load nine posts, from the review manifesto to a run of unboxings and designer interviews while The Boardgames Chronicle doubled down on the ACW thread (Three Days of Gettysburg) and kept a heavy first-impressions cadence (Chandragupta, Danger Forward). The through-lines match the feeds: Civil War, a flood of new GMT/Compass releases, and at the professional/contemporary edge that most tables never reach PAXsims on climate-and-stability games [lol]… and Wargaming Weekly’s land-drone micro-game.

Mission— BLOG: Featured Posts

The Players’ Aid — On Wargame Reviews — What They Are and What They Are Not

https://theplayersaid.com

The week’s meta-conversation. Sparked by a Mark Herman post, Grant lays out TPA’s philosophy of the review: not a full exploration, not a balance verdict, not a historicity ruling — an real impression of how a game plays and who it’s for. (This is the piece the wider hobby, us included, has been chewing on all week.)

The Boardgames Chronicle — Three Days of Gettysburg: Deluxe Edition — Unboxing & Overview

https://theboardgameschronicle.com

A deep look at GMT’s deluxe treatment of the 1995 classic on the largest battle of the Civil War — feeding directly into the ACW current running through the whole week’s video output.

A Wargamers Needful Things — Air & Armor: Würzburg — Designer Signature Edition (Compass)

https://www.awargamersneedfulthings.co.uk

A review of Compass’s DSE reissue of the tactical armored what-if of a Third World War in Europe the perennial challenge of simulating a war that never happened.

The Players’ Aid — Unboxing: Next War: Iran (GMT) + Interview: Chalice of Poison (Iran–Iraq War)

https://theplayersaid.com

Two posts, one theme: an Iran/Persia mini-cluster surfacing across the community this week the sixth Next War title (where the Allied player must attack) and a designer chat on the Iran–Iraq War game Chalice of Poison.

The Boardgames Chronicle — Chandragupta: Great Battles of the Mauryan Empire (GMT) + Danger Forward: Gela 1943

https://theboardgameschronicle.com

First impressions on the 13th GBoH volume (ancient India, Welch under the Berg/Herman framework) and on the BCS Sicily title both part of a heavy unboxing-and-first-impressions season.

Wargaming Weekly — #077: A micro-wargame about land drones

Paul introduces Iron Horse, a two-player micro-game modelling unmanned ground vehicles for logistics and CASEVAC in the Russo-Ukrainian war — the modern/contemporary edge of the hobby that most tables don’t touch.

Sustainment: BLOG — The Full Roundup

The Players Aid - Interview with Akar Bharadvaj Designer of Chalice of Poison: The Iran-Iraq War, 1980-1988 from GMT Games — 2026-07-20 - Unboxing Video: Vendée 93 from Fellowship of Simulations — 2026-07-19 - Unboxing Video: SPQR: The Battle of Alesia 52 BC from Art of Wargames — 2026-07-18 - Video Review: Congress of Vienna from GMT Games — 2026-07-17 - RAW Video: With the Hammer: Thomas Müntzer & The German Peasant War in Thuringia from Conflict Simulations Limited — 2026-07-16 - On Wargame Reviews. What they are; and What they are not…at least according to TPA — 2026-07-15 - My Favorite Wargame Cards – A Look at Individual Cards from My Favorite Games – Card #86: LRRP from Fire in the Lake: Insurgency in Vietnam from GMT Games — 2026-07-14 - Interview with John Lapham Designer of A More Perfect Union: The Struggle to Ratify the Constitution from Catastrophe Games Coming to Kickstarter Soon — 2026-07-13 - Unboxing Video: Next War: Iran from GMT Games — 2026-07-12

The Boardgames Chronicle - Three Days of Gettysburg: Deluxe Edition – Unboxing & Overview — 2026-07-19 - First Impressions for March of the Ants: Evolved Edition — 2026-07-17 - Chandragupta: Great Battles of the Mauryan Empire – Unboxing & Overview — 2026-07-15 - First Impressions for Danger Forward: The Battle of Gela, July 1943 — 2026-07-12

A Wargamers Needful Things - Air & Armor: Würzburg, Tactical Armored Warfare in Europe, Designer Signature Edition Compass Games — 2026-07-14 - Worthington Publishing News — 2026-07-14 - In Fours to Heaven: Coming Soon From Vuca Simulations — 2026-07-12

Cardboard Commander - Save 8% on Your Next Cube4Me Order! — 2026-07-18 - Operation Cardboard Is a GO! — 2026-07-18

Systematic Hatreds (Paul Musgrave) - Guardian of the Strait of Forever — 2026-07-13 - Avoiding Phony Universals — 2026-07-13

PAXsims - Using serious games for understanding climate and stability: A Climate of Instability — 2026-07-17 - CNN Academy UCD humanitarian simulation 2026 — 2026-07-13 [Editorial note I include Paxsims becuase of its Professional wargaming, despite the fact that these here are CLEARLY not wargames.

Wargaming Weekly - Wargaming Weekly #077: Are you looking for a micro-wargame about land drones? — 2026-07-15

Sgt Steiner’s Wargaming Blog - PBEM update - Combat Mission and Storm Over Arnhem — 2026-07-16

Grymauch’s Solo Wargaming Blog - Pony Wars: The Homestead Turns 1 - 8. — 2026-07-19

WARNO is assembled from a curated list of community channels and blogs. Featured creators, we’re sending readers your way — keep it coming.

Know a channel or blog that deserves covering? Want yours in a future issue? Email bigboardgaming@gmail.com. Wargame bloggers welcome.

The mottled camo blouse of a Fallschirmjaeger soldat fluttered in quick succession, lifting the enemy trooper and spinning him around in a dance only 156 grains compressed into the 53mm shell could. It packed enough punch at 200 meters to do the job. The FJ troopers MP 40 went one way, the body another.

He rapidly shoved the next en-bloc clip of five rounds in, pushed the bolt home and sought another target. He flinched and ducked from kneeling to prone as an MG 34’s rapid flat, clothing ripping sound echoed across the lush meadow land. He heard what sounds like Jan his squad mate cry out in pain. Shit. Then another cry. Our fire was slackening off. Seeking the sound of that machine gun, Wim fired blindly at the source, hoping to reduce the volume of its murderous sawing.

The tearing sound abated. Did he hit them? Or were they adjusting position. Time to move also!

The next ferry across would have our Lewis guns. That would help. Ferried as they were, by bicycle, baskets that once carried fruit, meat and cheese, now had ammo pans and the kit bags of the gunners.

The percussion, and sounds of their own covering arty barrage were getting awful close. The shells screamed in. The ground tore apart, early crops splaying in all directions, the rich loamy soil landing in clumps. Destroying the tidy panels of soggy farmland. German mortars returned fire. The machine guns tore at the men of Wim’s platoon with ist awful rhythm.

The sectioncommandant, roared at the platoon ‘Shoot damn you shoot!’ . Wim loaded his third clip, and fired low, and fast from the prone position. One clip, two. Others joined in. The enemy fire slackened. ‘Move, move.’ Came the cry.

Wim was up fast, bent over double, like they had trained him just weeks ago, weaving, running like it mattered. ‘Where those bullets or bees’ he thought, as the zinging, zipping sounds sought him out, he dove to the ground and fired blindly. Then the sawing shearing MG 34 spun up again. More men from Grouep Spui hit the dirt and began firing in return.

How had they found themselves in this mess?

Just three hours ago Wim was on guard duty at the depot. Then Kaptein J.W.J Moermann turned up in a flustered hurry, packed the men of Grouep Spui off the Gravendeel on requisitioned bicycles from the towns folk. Then they had headed for the river ferry, baskets laden with the tools of warfare, wooden rifle butts clanging and scraping as they pedal. As they boarded the ferry, that was when the arty , the 22e Royal Artillery in fact started to pound the surprised lightly armed German paratroopers. We rushed to the embankment, pushing our laden cycles, seeking cover.

That was how.

The Lewis guns manned by teams of two, opened up on each flank of the line Wim was in. Three squads of 8-10 men, less now after casualties, crept forward using shell holes, low growth crops and any cover they could find. The Lewis’s tattah tattah tattah tat, was heaven to his ears. It was no match in terms of volume of fire of the enemies, but it was more than their single action bolt action rifles.

‘First squad move, move’ Came the order. This was Wim’s. Up they went. Hendrink was next to him, they ran at the same pace, weaving, moving until he pitch face forward, arms splayed, twitched and that was all Wim saw, as he raced by, angling left now. Then to the ground. Squads two and three had been pushing sporadic fire, from the river bank near the road to Moerdijk. Now squad three moved. Lewis guns cycled ammo at a pace. Wim and his squadmates fired also. More clips fly through their hands.

Then a whistle.

Silence.

The sun was setting low. More barges and ferries brought men and equipment across.

The Germans had pulled back?

Could they now mine the road to Moerdijk, slow down the inevitable road reinforcements? Recapture Dordrecht?

They had moved against a tide of fleeing citizens on the roads to the ferry. What was happening elsewhere?

The Lt, came by, crouching low, looking pensively out into the dusk. ‘they will come back. It is their way. We lost too many today. But more are coming to help us. We must spend everything to hold then tonight. This where we stop the German panzers from getting further than here and the Moerdijk bridges. Right here boys.’

All day they had attempted time and time again to force this ridge. Woods, dense copse trees, thrown together barricades and of course a swarm of resilient Union fighters had thwart the assaults.

Polk saw Browns men finally crest the ridge as a wave of Union soldiers skedaddled, causing a mild chain reaction to their rear. At roughly the same time Polks own men crested the ridge.

In a surge they raced up the slope, bayonets at the fore, desperation this time is what carried the men. Wether it was the desire not to run up the hill again or sheer anger at being repulsed so many times we shall not know. But up they came, in and through. Cries of success outweigh the cries of fear and pain.

Polk cast about. He needed more men. They had secured a foot hold. Helm had done his job keep the Union lads pinned, now they need to exploit the gap.

There was nothing! Polk sent riders. Three of them, then a fourth. The woods swallowed them like a pond swallows a stone — not even a ripple back. He had a hole punched clean through the Union line and nothing to pour into it but his own spent men, leaning on their muskets, sucking wind. Somewhere behind him was what he needed. It might as well have been in Virginia.

The Union situation at the Noon hour had forces racing along the ridge top roads to reinforce and stem the tide.

Polk had his men and others beging to dig in. No rest for the wicked and weary. He suspected a counter attack at any moment. Dust rising off the ridge roads north and south, Union columns coming at the double, officers whipping them along. He could count the minutes he had left the way a man counts thunder after lightning. Buford’s gunners were still man-hauling pieces up the narrow trails, cursing, shoulders to the wheels — good men doing an hour’s work in a fight that would be decided in twenty minutes. The gap was there. The gap was closing..

The men knew before Polk did. You could see it in how they worked; no talk, remaining cartridge boxes counted and shared out, bayonets checked, a fence rail dragged here, a dead man’s rifle stood against a tree there. Nobody said reinforcements weren’t coming. Nobody had to.

A boy from some back water county stacked rocks like he was mending a wall back home, and maybe in his head he was, it calmed his mind for what was to come. They had taken the ridge.

Now the ridge would find out what it cost to keep.

A bugle sounds, the pennants and flags are waved. ‘Here they come boys.’ Was all he had time to say. His weary men were almost immediately thrown back by a hail of fire and bristling bayonets outnumbering them two and sometimes three to one. No amount of valour would keep the men from breaking. And break they did.

Bayonet tips dropped. The colors wavered in the dank air. Eyes looked left and right instead of dead center.

Then it happened. The cumulative effect of the day, the small choices, made, poor timing, the chaose, like that one unlucky roll in a craps game that sweeps away all your winnings. The order was to hold, the order was to stand fast for Dixie, the order ran counter to reality.

The woods offered protection.

Survival.

The Rebels did not give ground.

They broke, for the sanctuary offered by the woods.
The Union XX pursued. The ridgeline was resecured.

By evening the ridge was just ground again. The same copses, the same dense woods, dusty trails, the same thrown-together barricades, holding no one. But the story of who was there, where they died and when, was etched into the blood stained dirt, the musket ball ridden trees and the swelling bodies.

A whole day, and all its dead, spent to give it back.

“Proceed at haste to support 2/Bake battalion and elements of 62^nd Division. SS-Panzergrenadier Regiment 3 (Deutschland) will engage and hold the line at all costs.“

Three sharp horn blasts repeated twice, then the message spread rapidly, men rolled into vehicles, engines were warmed. The hard frozen ground making everything punishingly hard, slow and dangerous.

The bleak morning light, shimmered as Artillery and Soviet air blasted around their destination. Weak jokes were made. Resigned shrugs signaling ‘eh, what can you do?’.

These are hard men.

Determined.

Cruel. Many would say evil; veterans of the Yugoslav civilian massacre at Seliste, the murders of Jews in Minsk. The list was not short.

There were no angels to be found in this regiment.

Heavy black overcoats were buttoned, weapons checked, men grabbed extra ammo, more grenades, extra belts for the MG 42’s & 34’s.

They had fought the Soviets many times. But never like this. On the back foot, retreating. The Deutschland retreating. Unheard of. But they Russian would pay for every meter in blood.

Faces set. Grimacing through cold, aches, or just old wounds. A weariness that no sleep could cure, only death would set the men of the Wolfsangel free to rest in hell.

With the Soviet attack well under way, the men of Deutschland could see that the volume of fire, and number of tanks from 5^th Guard was enormous. Dr Bake’s Tigers 88mm guns pounded the T-34/85’s at range, but on they came, heedless of losses. The 62nds shallow defenses were close to being overrun.

From the SdKz’s men watch the Tiger 1’s rock back on their chassis as round after round of AT hurtled away. Panthers always on the move, added their firepower at T34’s that were closer. The stark tigers head on the hulls of the German tanks, Bakes unit icon, could be seen through both mud and winter whitewash.

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Rather than meet the threat head on, officers of the Deutschland drove at breakneck speed to flank the advance of the three Soviet formations in the lead, using gullies and depressions as mild cover. The 62^nd was beginning to fight back, finding its spine, it was all touch and go. The 3^rd Regiments Mortars were first to punch back. Quickly dialed into the advancing lorries, and the troops on foot using the lee of the T-34s for cover. The 8cm mortars savaged them from behind a small rise.

However it was the roar of the 5cm PaK AT guns hitting the brigade of tanks from the flank that put paid to the Soviet momentum. The attack slowed. ‘34s burned, brewed up and collapsed.

With a wave of an arm SdKfz 251’s of various types raced forward into the exposed infantry. The flat staccato howl of the MG 34 and 42’s carving away any pretense of Soviet heroics.

The assault broke up. Thirty smoking hulls of tanks lay strewn across the front line. Dead and dying in their hundreds, nearly half the Soviet tanks ruined.

The men of the Deutschland, paused to survey the carnage. There was no celebration. It was the third time in just a week they have been thrown into the breach.

Plugging the hole.

Massacring the enemy. They did not waste time or ammo finishing off the enemy.

The cold would do that for them.

Now. It was time to re arm and eat. Find fuel.

Rest and try not to dream of what they had just done. What they do daily. Who they have become.

Further up the tree line Sgt Hill and his squads and the 1919, had their hands full. Jerry had got in close. A lot of yelling and shooting there. But not much he could do, his job was the FNG’s [F#$king New Guys].

Ash kept looking for his mortar teams shots in the grey and white sky. He could hear them, but not see them. Everything was surreal, muted and really quiet pretty. Until you heard the crump and muffled cry of anguish from some hapless German caught in the open. Lt Michael had come along nicely, but in a kind of scary way Ash mused. He wanted dead Jerries. No prisoners and no excuses from the men. Which was why Ash was situated near the second 30 cal team. They had just the one senior guy in the squad. All the rest were FNG’s. No one knew their names. No one cared yet. They had to survive first, and do their damn job.

On they came, dark figures in warm heavy coats, hell they had gloves too!! Well at least they were warm he thought. Meanwhile he was freezing his ass off. Logistics. Yeah armies run on their stomachs. F#$k we work better with 5 fingers on each hand too, and no frostbite. Damn it was cold…his mind drifted.

The 1919 chugah chugged, bringing him back into focus. At least 3 squads were running hard right at us. The FNG’s fired long panicked bursts. He could hear Baker screaming at them to slow down, control the burst and aim lower….Shit. We are all gunna die, he sighed to no one in particular. Gathering up his kit he prepared to move over and help Baker with the recruits.

A snipers rifle cracked overhead, as Bakers men drove the enemy to ground. Baker was pretty sure the panicked kid manning the 30 had hit very few guys. “Slower kid..slower, controlled bursts.”

Over at the far end of the line, Sgt Hill indeed was racing his squad through the sparse woods to reinforce the MG team, who had stopped firing. As his men entered the area, they formed an inverted V, seeking to coral the enemy and identify their concentration of force.

Both sides lit into each other, men dove for cover as snow, branches, bark flew everywhere. Ricochets whistled by, both sides ducked, moved, fired and dodged through the woods.

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Near Lt Michael, Ash could see that several squads closing in. He had support, but to his mind it was too far away. He was about to head over and help out, when he realised that the 30 cal was not firing. “Shit”.. he ran, dodging between trees, ducking as bullets shipped by. Germans were everywhere.

He dove into the nearest pathetically shallow fox hole. God Dang FNG’s…They were gunna wish it was deeper! “Get up, get up, who is manning the 30? He shook the soldier who stared wildly at Ash. I.. I dunno. A whistling sound, followed by another….”Incoming” shouted Ash. He dove for cover. Hugging the frozen ground, clawing closer, pressing in. Huge branches fell, trees exploded, and men died. Just as suddenly it was over.

With ears still ringing, he was up after the last shell, cratered the earth. The Jerry always salvo’d a certain way. He sprinted, panting. Dove into Bakers extended fox hole and slid to a stop. Most of the fire team were huddled around Baker, trying to stop the bleeding. “Shit…shit.. He took one look at Baker and knew he was done for. “Baker buddy, I got you. I got you. He jabbed a morphine shot in his arm. Saw the panic fade, and watched Baker slip away, a small smile on his face. He guts were all over two of the troopers. “get on that f$%king gun, Damn it!!! NOW.” I roared…They sat staring at their hands. Then one stood and turned towards the MG and started walking….

“Get down you dumb ass, get…The FNG’s head ballooned outwards, like a melon exploding.

Ash crawled over the guy, racked the gun, checked the belt and pulled up on the trigger, anger poured through from his heart to his arm, down to the trigger finger. “More ammo, More ammo” he yelled. One of the FNG’s scooted forward, dragging a fresh box, and fed the belt in. He kept low, the shock gone from his face. “Hey kid,” Ash said..then laughed, he was what maybe a year or two older? “Kid, its gunna be ok, stick by me, whats your name?”

“Lucado” he stammered in reply. “Ok, Lucado,” Ash said, sparing him a glance, “ you keep me in ammo, and you keep an eye out left and right. Get your friends who are alive to start shooting anytime now. Got it? We gunna be ok, but this gun has to stay up, or your as dead as your pal there Ya hear me Lucado?”

A Potato Masher sailed through the air , landing at Lucados feet, he grabbed it and threw, But nor far enough. The blast caught him and Ash, blowing them back and down. Shrapnel peppered Ash, he cried in pain. Left handed now he pulled on the trigger taking out the 2 advancing Germans, then collapsed into the fox hole, writhing in pain. “Lucado, buddy, you doing ok?….”

He didn’t answer. In fact no one was left around him. The men all had assume poses of inhuman death.

Cpl Meadows shouted out the MG pit; “get that damn MG up ASAP” “ Yeah yeah, Cpl, get me a damn loader and a squad will ya. Oh and a medic.”

Mortar shells rained down, and Meadows called out, “on the way Ash, one the way, you got to hold on a minute man.” Somewhere an MG 42 chattered its death song. Ash’s vision blurred. He thought I need bandage, and I need a tourniquet…. He fumbled, in his kit, but stopped and rolled behind Lucado using his dead body as a bullet stop. Now quickly he rummaged through his first aid. Finding it just as bullets thwacked the inert body in front of him. With a bandage on, he worked the tourniquet tight on his right arm. The pain, brought clarity, he bit down on it and into the pain. Then racked the 30, again and checked the belt. Just as a German soldier arched his back to throw, death his way. A squeeze, and the gun rode up and tore the bastard to bits. The rest of the germans hunkered down and started inching back. He poured on the fire… they were retreating!

He sighed in relief and passed out over the gun, sagging down over it.

Back at the relief station Ash came to. He was warm for the first time. With an IV, bandages and stitches all over his right side. Sgt Hill and Cpl Meadows walked into the aid station. “Shit Cpl Ash you look like crap” Then they smiled at him. “Wait, what? Corporal?” Said Ash.

“ Yeah, for some reason that butter bar got a soft spot for you, wants to give you a medal. But don’t worry, we told him you were just too stupid to die like the rest of the squad!”

They all laughed, and Ash, immediately regretted it as pain wracked his side. Hill said, “You know we all got lucky this time, we were close to cracking, but they broke first, thanks to you”

“Nuts, Give me a smoke Sarge, you owe me that much.” Said Ash.

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There was no time to be afraid. There was only the next order, and the one after that.

The elephants came on at his front first. His Marines and Velites, hastily conformed into a ragged line, did the only thing men can do against elephants; they made them more afraid than they were. They darted in and speared the beasts in the rump, flung rocks, screamed, anything, and the great animals wheeled and bolted off in every direction, trampling their own as they went. Manlius urged his horse forward with the legions, peeling off cohorts as he advanced on the left to brace against the Numidian penetration he knew was coming. His best centurions had the maniples wheeling into position, signifers and optios working in unison without being told.

Thank Mars for Roman discipline. When everything else fails, that remains.

He glanced back at the Triarii and was steadied by what he saw — old faces among them, mail shirts and crested helmets, men he had known in Gaul. Veteran determination written in the set of their shoulders. They had not run from worse than this.

With the elephants gone, the goat-skins and rebels on his right stood suddenly exposed. Will Antonius see it? His prefect had the maniples on that wing; a bold man would attack now, into the gap, and turn the day’s one piece of luck into something real.

It seemed Hostus had the same thought from the other side.

The rebel’s levies rushed the Roman line, seeking the advantage first. The leading Hastati met them in a vicious shoving match, scutum to shield, and for a moment the sheer ferocity of it stunned the front ranks. Then the decanus called the passage of lines, cool as a man on the drill field, and the relief came up through the gaps the way it was meant to. They broke contact, reformed, charged again, pila spent, the charge going in half-blunted, men holding ground by main strength while the cohorts behind them advanced.

And then Manlius saw Antonius’s standard fall.

Did the prefect meet his end?

He could not tell, and could not go to see. But his men fought on. The Principes rotated up and followed the attack, and he relaxed a fraction as a hail of light pila flew through the air into the lightly armed enemy. He could not see the close work from where he sat his horse, but he knew it by heart and let his mind walk it: the Principes closing at the trot — thirty-five metres, thirty — and at ten the second volley of heavy pila striking home with that deadly weight, and then every man drawing his gladius and bringing up his scutum, the whole line connecting with the enemy shields in one sickening crunch.

Hostus’s pennant wavered. The men around it wavered with it.

Hostus died on the field.

A win. A real one but with Antonius down, there was no one to seize it. Manlius could only hope an optio, a tesserarius, someone in the chain would take hold and exploit it before the moment closed. He had no attention to spare for the right anymore.

He had bigger problems on his left.

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Mago’s cavalry were riding loose among the Velites and Hastati now, cutting them down at their leisure. His cohorts trying to hold the flank looked up to see a wave of dark African infantry bearing down on them through the dust the Numidian horse had thrown into the air. It was enough to unnerve any man. He watched them feel it — and watched them hold anyway.

Plautius, the centurion of the Triarii, read it the same instant Manlius did and waved his veterans forward. If the old hands could pin the Africans in front, perhaps the battered Roman cavalry, what was left of it, could come around and take the purple robes from behind.

Hasdrubal read it too. His signaler called, and the Balearic slingers went to work, stones humming out to ward off and slow the distant Roman horse before it could ever arrive. Every move answered before it was finished. The enemy was simply faster than the day allowed Manlius to be.

He was at the side of the V Legion now, riding with them as they ground forward into the center of Hasdrubal’s Iberian line. The Iberians were giving way at last; his men were clearing the last of them. For one breath it almost looked like progress.

He turned to look back from the Iberians in front of him — and saw Mago and his lancers bearing straight down on him from the side.

He straightened his aching back on instinct, wheeled his horse, and sounded the warning as his men shook off the last of the enemy to his front.

He never saw the rest.

Deep behind him, in the gap his own advance had opened between himself and the Triarii, Hasdrubal signaled the charge. The African heavy infantry surged through it, into the soft Roman center from inside the line, and the nearest maniples around Manlius were simply swept away. The men drove their advantage home, and as Roman cohorts began to rout in front of them it raised the blood of every Carthaginian on the field. A line that breaks from the rear does not stop breaking, it implodes violently. The Trarii, fought bravely in a hasty retreat, as teh less seasoned raced past them.

He had fought blind, and the blindness had killed him not his courage, not his discipline, not the valor of the V.

Only that he could never see the second jaw until it had already closed.

In the dark, after the sounds of battle had subsided, a tall and noble but weary looking Roman walked slowly over the rise before the rocky shore, and stopped to look one last time back upon his last battlefield.

Caralis.

“Omina frustra,” he murmured. The omens, for nothing.

The Battle for Sardinia was lost.

This is the 8th battle of the Second Punic War campaign. (Battle 7 was a naval conflict.) So far Carthage leads, 7–0. As you read this, Nero is flanking Hannibal at the 3rd Battle of Nol

Inside the walls of Caralis he was warm and dry, and that was something. The heat reached into his aging bones and found the ache that lived there now. Not a wound exactly, more a chill that had taken up residence and refused to leave, even on an evening as mild and clear as this one. He turned his hands toward the flames and worked his knuckles open, slow and deliberate, the way a man works a stiff hinge. Sixty-one years old. Too old, by any honest reckoning, to be conducting tactical disengagements against Hasdrubal and an army whose size he had never once been allowed to see.

This day had reminded him too much of the other days. The dark ones. The bloody forests of Gaul, the close green dark where you often could not see the man who killed you, where he had soldiered under Camillus and learned what it was to fight at disadvantage, almost blindly.

And yet — thank the gods for those days. Rome came out of those experiences and fought like a well-oiled machine now, ever since the Camillian reforms: the manipular line, the passage of ranks, the discipline that let a tired army bend without breaking. Well. Not lately, perhaps. Not so much. He grimaced as the old wounds warmed, and leaned closer to the fire.

“That Hannibal,” he said to the flames, “and all his clan. Lucky only so many times.”

He did not believe it tonight, but it was a good thing to say aloud.

“Proconsuls today are all self-serving fools.” He sighed. They sought glory for themselves and called it the glory of Rome. Well. This old fool will not be fooled. My legions will fight, or they will die trying to put down this rebellion. Bbut they will not be fooled.

His attendant stepped forward and refilled the watered wine. Manlius waved the jug away, harder than he meant to. “Enough.”

He rose stiffly and crossed to the map table, calling for more light. A boy brought lamps and the shadows pulled back from the coastline scratched into the wax. There was the problem, laid out plain: he could not read it. Hasdrubal’s cavalry screen had ridden circles around his scouts for a week and kept him ignorant of the one thing that mattered. Know thy enemy. A tale writ large by our God of War. The true size and quality of the Carthaginian force loose on this island, he had no clear understanding. He needed more time. He needed to train his troops further.

He had at least drawn first blood. The V and XIV had given that young rebel Hostus a sound beating earlier in the week, and the gods knew the men had needed the victory. The V had been leaderless too long, raw recruits held together by Pimus Pilus and best Centurions. The XIV was a motley crew if ever he saw one. They had performed well enough — but his tribunes and prefects had been reckless, and he’d had a devil of a time reining in their pursuit. Opportunities lost. A small win bought at the price of a lesson he would rather they had already known.

By every report, Hasdrubal would arrive in two days.

When he does, I will be ready. He set his aching knuckles on the edge of the map table and let the warmth go out of them again.

But will my men be?

Two mornings later he had his answer, or the beginning of one. The armies stood arrayed against each other across seven hundred metres of open ground, close enough that he could see the colors but not yet the faces.

On his own right, the African few elephants, screened a ragged assortment behind them: goat-skinned Sardinians, Thracians, Aetolians, the leavings of a rebellion. He turned and looked left, toward the heart of the enemy line, and there it was. The heavy infantry of Carthage, their distinctive purple-hued robes, lifting and falling in the breeze. Thier burnished shields almost as pristine as hi own Legions, reflecting the sun. Beside them the Iberian light foot, round bucklers catching the early light.

And on the far left, the horse. Carthaginian heavy cavalry trampling the ground among the lancers, and threaded through them the Numidians. Mere savages. Nearly naked, a shield and a fistful of wicked javelins their only kit, stark against the breastplates and greaves of the heavier men. Beautiful, in the way a blade is beautiful. He had seen what they did to a flank. Thier speed, accuracy and timing made up for thier lack of armor.

A lone horn sounded across the field.

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As Manlius had expected, the entire enemies right, under their general Mago, began its wide sweep toward his twelve hundred Roman cavalry. Nothing new there. By prescription and by custom he gave the order, and his Velites went forward at the trot, javelins ready to intervene.

The warriors closed.

Then… what?

A rolling crash struck his eardrums. Horses, men, javelins, all of it thrown together just off his left, dust going up in a sudden brown wall. No time to think about elephants. The V Legion’s cavalry was already losing cohesion, the formation fraying at the edges, and as he watched one alae simply came apart and fled the field. Damn. The Celtic lancers had paid for their brash charge too, by the look of it, some small comfort.

“Steady!” he roared down the line. “Keep your pace!” He jerked reins, and reeled around. Seeking order.

His attention dragged left again, pulled by something his soldier’s instinct had caught before his eye could name it. He looked. And the chill that lived in his bones spread all at once into his stomach.

That was Hanno. Hanno, at the head of the African heavy infantry — and they were also sweeping his left, coming out from behind the Iberians, swinging wide onto his flank. The cavalry. The elephants. And now the purple robes, the best foot on the field, all of it turning toward him at once.

This is not what I expected.

The dread he had not felt since the green darkness in the woods of the West settled cold into his gut, and this time there were no trees to blame.

To Be Continued.

Part 2 is live

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