"Mentioned In Dispatches" with the Armchair Dragoons

17 April 2026 ~ For the season 16 finale, Brant’s joined by David Thompson , Tim Densham , and Byron Collins to talk about game conventions coming up, some of our favorites, some we can’t stand, and what makes for good & bad conventions. Oh, and Tim needs some advice, too, toward the end.   Drop in on your podcast platform of choice  ( iTunes | Spotify |  Amazon |  Castro | wh...

10 April 2026 ~ Brant is joined by Dr Aggie Hirst of Kings College London to discuss her research that resulted in the book “Politics of Play” and her other explorations of professional wargaming Links & References Politics of Play: Wargaming with the US Military Mentioned In Dispatches S16 E8 – The Wargamer’s Bookshelf Battle Lab ~ Another “Resurgence” of Military Wargaming and Ba...

3 April 2026 ~ Brant is joined by industry veterans Chris Pramas and Ross Thompson to talk about pathways into working in the tabletop game industry. Chris is one of the bigwigs at Green Ronin , and Ross just recently jumped on at Critical Role . The Tabletop Game Jobs group is here (it’s public) and the Tabletop Game Job Talents group is here (it’s  not ).  They’re both on Faceb...

27 March 2026 ~ Brant, Rocky, Aaron, Austin, and Keith all team up to talk about sci-fi wargaming and barely scratch the surface. Hear what the designers are thinking as they’re developing their games, and we leave plenty of space for future episodes, too. Of course there are links! Marine: 2002 – A Game of the First Lunar War (1979) Robotech: Reconstruction (2023) Raider Drop Zone (2024) Ha...

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 years 1 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 fanc...

13 March 2026 ~ Byron and Rocky join Brant to talk about all sorts of fights-in-the-skies, as we look up for this week’s podcast. The mandatory list of references Like an (Air) Boss – A veritable Typhoon of Angels, Bears, Phantoms, Intruders and Mustangs all Fly(ing) to Fight and Win in a minis wargaming Danger Zone – Rocky’s article on Cold War jet-age aircraft combat Lee Brimmi...

6 March 2026 ~ Brant is joined by a pair of professional wargaming educators (Ed McGrady and David Banks) to talk about the professional development options for those in the applied / practitioner / professional world as well as a bit about how hobbyists can cross over Mandatory linkdump! Kings College War Studies Department MORS Certificates , including their wargaming courses Dragoons playlists...

27 February 2026 ~ Ardwulf joins the podcast for a discussion about when the bifurcation of wargames and TTRPGs happened, and how & why.  Anecdotes aplenty and also assorted assholery abounds. Links to some of what we discussed Old parlour games / proto-RPGs Flintlock’s shifty thread on Bluesky The Dicing With Dragons book The Defense Language Institute in Monterey / The Customs House Pl...

20 February 2026 ~ Brant, Mike, and Bill are joined by Mark Miklos to talk about his BoAR series and the upcoming special event this Fall in Camden, SC, as well as RevCon in Charlottesville 2 , and more.  Mark gives players some insight into the history of the series, what’s coming next, and even some advice on gameplay. Some of the key links for this episode Our last BoAR podcast episode ,...

13 February 2026 ~ Brant, Chris, and Merle 3 gather ’round the virtual campfire to talk about why & how Connections Online came into being, a couple of standout panels & stories from the past 5 years of events, and the inevitable struggle to stay on topic whenever another shiny digression goes prancing across their view. Some key links and references— Connections Online Youtube Playl...

6 February 2026 ~ Brant, Mike, and Gary look ahead to 2026 BGF and talk about The War Room, the other games & events there, and things they’d like to see. There’s plenty of ground we cover in this episode, so here are some of the relevant links BGF homepage and registration page The 2025 BGF report and Mike’s video and The Player’s Aid debrief A Wargaming Panel with Mar...

30 January 2026 ~ Kicking off the new season, our erstwhile co-hosts take a deep dive into the wide world of wargaming and discuss what they think the wargaming hobby is missing. So you can hear what our couple of wargaming yammerers think, but what do you—the educated & erudite audience—think we’re missing from the overall wargaming hobby?  Sound off below or in our forums or on any of...

5 December 2025 ~ Well, we asked for it . . . ASK US ANYTHING!For our Season 15 finale of our podcast, you've got until Monday to get your questions in Jim, Mike & Brant will take their best swing at answering whatever you're wanting to know about wargaming, or the Dragoonsuse #AskMID15 & we'll collect them for the show — Armchair Dragoons (@armchairdragoons.bsky.social)...

28 November 2025 ~ There are no shortage of game conventions held in the Fall each year, so we brought together some folks attended 3 of them to talk about the fun they had.  Christina Kahrl gives us the low-down on SDHist 2025; Grant Linneberg of Pushing Cardboard attended his first BottosCon; Aaron Danis dropped into Compass Expo, since FoxCon was cancelled. What did they play?  What were their...

21 November 2025 ~ With yesterday’s launch of the latest  Flashpoint Campaigns game,  Cold War , we wanted a visit with our buddies from On Target Sims to talk about the changes in this game, the challenges of developing games on Cold War-era combat, how far you could stretch the system, and what lessons they learned along the way. Brant’s joined this week by James Sterrett, as they in...

14 November 2025 ~ Brant & Jim are joined by (only a few of) the Riches of Wargame Design Studio to talk about their latest series of games – The Sword & Siege series – that covers medieval warfare As always when Jim is present, or pretty much any time we record a podcast, things  do get off-topic a bit, but always focused on Wargame Design Studio.  We get a preview of what’s coming...

7 November 2025 ~ OK, so we’re getting wacky 4 this week as we bring in a pair of game designers/professional musicians on board to talk about the parallels between the wargaming business (and hobby gaming as a whole) and the music business – creating your own music, finding a publisher, going on tour, market segmentation, storytelling, and more Let’s welcome aboard Wes Crawford of Wha...

31 October 2025 ~ For the first time on Mentioned in Dispatches, we’re joined by designer James M. Day, who partnered with Fernando Sola Ramos in designing this year’s multiple-CSR-award-winning Panzer: North Africa . So Brant & Mike barrage Mr Day with a variety of questions about his history of designing tank-heavy games, the local newspaper covering his win, some history in the...

24 October 2025 ~ Brant, Mike, and Keith have a discussion about the 2025 Fall Assembly, just in case you weren’t already sick of hearing about the best convention that you haven’t yet attended. What got played?  What stuck out for us?  What about the new location?  What did we like or not?  What about next year 5 ?  Plenty of wargaming crammed into a pretty tightly-packed weekend with...

17 October 2025 ~ The Game Manufacturers Association, which has now been renamed GAMA: The Tabletop Games Association, has been a bit of a flashpoint for wargamers over the past dozen years or more. With some real questions about why wargamers should care about GAMA, it’s often been tough to make the case that they should.  But with all the changes at GAMA since the pandemic 6 there’s...

10 October 2025 ~ After 3 years, Brian’s back to join us to talk about his latest releases, both Brief Border Wars 2 , and China’s War , which have been in extended development and both just happen to hit your porch at about the same time. Brant, Mike, and Brian talk about quad games overall, d66 dice mechanics, development & history of the Brief Border Wars oeuvre, other ‘qu...

3 October 2025 ~ For our third consecutive Summer, we teamed up with Beyond Solitaire for a big survey about people’s solo/solitaire war & historical gaming.  We were interested in both purpose-designed solitaire games as well as games people played solo regardless of how they were designed.  We had a Google form open for a month towards the end of the Summer for people to vote.  We tallied th...

26 September 2025 ~ The 2024 Charles S Roberts Awards were presented over the Summer at Origins 8 but we didn’t get a chance to weigh in with our opinions until now.  Look, you already know who won, because you read our site religiously and saw the list we published back in June, right?  Right?! But what you haven’t heard is Jim chime in with his outrageous French accent, or Mike compl...

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 sma...

18 April 2025 ~ Brant, Jim, and Mike just talk about games – mostly wargames, some classic computer games, some good, some bad, and everything in between! There’s no real agenda here, we’re just babbling about random wargame stuff, from ooooold computer wargames to upcoming battle anniversaries to the SALUTE show over in London. Some of the links we promised in the episode Tankti...