Mentioned In Dispatches S15 E1 – The Wargaming “Canon”
"Mentioned In Dispatches" with the Armchair DragoonsShow Notes
19 September 2025 ~ Annnnnnnnnnd, we’re back! Brant is joined by fellow Dragoon Jim/Cyrano, and regular guests Gary/Ardwulf & Liz from Beyond Solitaire, for a discussion inspired by Liz’s comments last year about “what’s in the Wargaming Canon of those games that you expect people to have played if they’re claiming to be a wargamer” So we brought some smart people together, and let Brant crash the party since he runs the console, and tried to figure out what games we would’ve expected wargamers to have played at some point — not their favorites, or the most influential, or the most popular — if you’re trying to earn that Grognard Merit Badge. Give the show a listen for the rationale behind the choices, especially since some of them were merely exemplars of wider series/families of games; there’s four different Commands & Colors series games in the table below, but as explained it’s really about picking out the era of interest to you and then giving it a whirl. We even explain why we left some particular choices off the list, so don’t go ballistic until you hear it all!
Title Publisher(s) Original Date
Kriegsspiel (1824) Original Prussian Kriegsspiel 1824
D‑Day (exemplar of old AH flat-box designs) Avalon Hill (original) 1961
PanzerBlitz (or swap in Panzer Leader / AIW) Avalon Hill 1970
Napoleon (4th edition) Columbia Games 1974
The Russian Campaign Avalon Hill / Jedko 1974
Third Reich Avalon Hill 1974
Wooden Ships & Iron Men Avalon Hill 1974
Blue & Gray Quadrigame (exemplar of SPI quads) SPI (original) 1975
Frederick the Great SPI / Avalon Hill 1975
Napoleon’s Last Battles SPI / Decision Games reprints 1976
War in Europe SPI / Decision Games reprints 1976
OGRE Steve Jackson Games 1977
Squad Leader Avalon Hill 1977
Republic of Rome Avalon Hill / Valley Games remasters 1978
Ambush! Victory Games 1983
Empires in Arms Australian Design Group / Avalon Hill 1983
RAF (exemplar of Butterfield designs) West End Games12 1986
Battle Cry (part of C&C series) Avalon Hill 1999
Hammer of the Scots (exemplar of block games) Columbia Games 2002
Memoir ’44 (part of C&C series) Days of Wonder 2004
Empire of the Sun GMT Games 2005
Commands & Colors: Ancients (part of C&C series) GMT 2006
Here I Stand GMT Games 2006
Maria Histogame 2009
Pax Pamir (exemplar of Pax series) Sierra Madre / Wehrlegig 2009
Commands & Colors: Napoleonics (part of C&C series) GMT Games 2010
Dawn of the Zeds (exemplar of States of Siege series) Victory Point Games 2010
Cuba Libre (exemplar of COIN series) GMT 2013
Enemy Action: Ardennes (exemplar of Butterfield designs) Compass Games 2015
Napoléon 1815 Shakos 2022
There were some other things mentioned during the show, so here’s some / most / almost all of them
The Virgin Queen Unboxing Luftwaffe Starship Troopers the AH wargame, and Starship Troopers the ‘satirical’ movie
And yes, Ardwulf was constructing and testing a plastic speedcoaster for his marble collection in the background.
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