Mentioned In Dispatches S15 E1 – The Wargaming “Canon”

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 Games11 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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