Mentioned In Dispatches S16 E8 – The Wargamer’s Bookshelf
"Mentioned In Dispatches" with the Armchair DragoonsShow Notes
20 March 2026 ~ Brant is joined by Dr James Sterrett and Jan Heinemann to revisit & update our earlier discussion way back in season 2 on The Essential Wargaming Library. In the past 5-6 years2 there’s been a veritable explosion of full-length, serious books about wargaming and those interested in these titles are now filling up a second shelf with them, instead of having room for fancy bookends and tchotchkes around the limited selection of wargaming tomes. Linkdump
Forging Wargamers by Sebastian Bae Wargames According to Mark by Mark Herman Eurowargames anthology from Nuts Publishing Wargaming Experiences: Soldiers, Scientists and Civilians and Wargaming Experiences II: Discussions by Natalia Wojtowicz UK MoD Wargaming Handbook (PDF) Paper Time Machines: Critical Game Design and Historical Board Games by Maurice Suckling Cardboard Ghosts: Using Physical Games to Model and Critique Systems by Amabel Holland (and the Mechanisms as Metaphors video) Historical Simulation and Wargames: The Hexagon and the Sword by Ricardo Masini Politics of Play: Wargaming with the US Military by Aggie Hirst The Matrix Games Handbook: Professional Applications from Education to Analysis and Wargaming by John Curry Raph Koster’s A Theory of Fun for Game Design Peruvian Naval War College Journal issue on wargaming Journal of Advanced Military Studies wargaming issue Wargaming Handbooks panel from Connections Online
Drop in on your podcast platform of choice (iTunes | Spotify | Amazon | Castro | whatever we forgot to link) and throw our way to help other listeners find us
Thank you for visiting the Regiment of Strategy Gaming and saddling up with The Armchair Dragoons. Rather than list a bunch of social media links, the easiest thing to do is to check out our LinkTree, which connects you to all of our various locales around the web, including our all-new merchandise shop. You can also support The Armchair Dragoons through our Patreon, and find us at a variety of conventions and other events. Feel free to talk back to us either in our discussion forum, or in the comments below.
More from "Mentioned In Dispatches" with the Armchair Dragoons
16 October 2026 ~ Bill & Mike both attended the September weekend of American Revolutionary War gaming in Camden, SC. This weekend was sponsored by GMT Games and built primarily around Mark Miklos’ Battles of the American Revolution series (although other games were played, too). Battlefield tours, cannon fire, wargaming tournaments, Justegarde, and more! Kick back and enjoy the shortest episode of our podcast in 17 seasons. Key links!
9 October 2026 ~ Brant is joined by Drew & Cole Wehrle, of Buried Giant Studios, for a rambling chat about their plans & development processes, plus alt-histories, convention booths, and more Some links to things we discussed:
2 October 2026 ~ Brant is joined by Elizabeth Hargrave and David Thompson to talk about the TTGDA and what it can do for game designers and publishers. There’s discussion of contracts (and contract shenanigans!) and professional development and designers’ rights and a bit on AI. We get a couple of war stories and some discussion on payments & royalties, how to engage with the TTGDA, and more.
25 September 2026 ~ They’re back! Liz from Beyond Solitaire joins Brant & Mike to talk about the past 4 years of the solo wargaming survey as well as a few thoughts about the 2026 iteration. What have we learned? What do we want to change going forward? What are some of those burning questions that we just won’t get answered in a survey like this? When is Liz going to schedule and hold her co-working “SoloGameCon” on Discord? All this and more, tonight on BIIIIIIIIG-PODCAST!
18 September 2026 ~ Conventions don’t just ‘happen’! There’s a lot that goes into the planning, whether picking the time on the calendar, or dealing with venues, or planning your events, and dealing with attendees, so we brought together a great panel to talk about them Let’s welcome Rob Bottos (BottosCon) and Andrew Buchholz (SDHistCon) and Sean Nittner (formerly of Big Bad Con and now . . . well, you gotta listen) to join Brant to talk about all this and more in their discussion of convention planning