In 2020 a group of veteran game designers kicked off the initial Zenobia contest. This is a competition that mentors historical game designers who are underrepresented within the gaming community. Contestants will have a chance to state why they feel that their community needs a voice within the design space.

The contest had over 150 entries and culminated 11 months later with eight semi-finalists and selected Tyranny of Blood as the initial winner of the contest. The Zenobia II contest is now live, and designers have until 14 October to enter a design proposal. This year’s contest opens the gaming aperture with the inclusion of miniatures game designs.

We have another great interview with George Washington University’s  Strategic Crisis Simulations  leadership. Our own Caroline “CWIS” Gilmore is joined by Cormac Brown and Cassandra Micah and we talk all about the excellent program these talented students run.

Today we have Adrian Mandzy who published a miniatures scenario book that focuses on the Ukrainian partisan movement during WWII. We also talk about the great game By Fire and Sword, the use of wargames in academics and historical archeology.

Today we have Eric Hansen the designer of Blood & Crowns, a new game about the 100-Years War from Firelock Games. We talk about the game and the work involved in the design process.

Today we have John Chang the designer of Black Powder Red Earth a 28mm ultra-modern tactical skirmish game. We talk about the game and the design process the developers went through to get the game to market.

The boys are back in town! The NDNG crew went to Historicon 2023 in scenic Lancaster PA. It was a full crew, with Tom, Preston, Scott and Matt gaming and creating mayhem. We have a bunch of guests on the show and we talk about our Firelock Ironman and about wargaming in general. 

By Mitche Reed

I hate to reveal my age, but I remember the US withdrawal from South Vietnam in 1975, I remember thinking as they pushed helicopters off the sides of US warships “Won’t they need those?”

Gaming the fall of the South is something that has always interested me; I have played Volko Ruhnke’s Fire in the Lake, Fall of Saigon expansion, but that is a COIN game and I wanted to play just the military aspect of the final act of the Vietnam Conflict. Luckily the designers from Nuts! Publishing has released Saigon 75 a game that covers the topic.

Today we have game designer Maurice Suckling on the show. We talk about his amazing game designs and his upcoming game Crisis 1914  A game about the series of events that lead to the Great War.

By Mitch Reed

I hope many of you can recall my article from the Connections Wargaming Conference in 2022 and the podcast from 2019 that spoke to this event. The 2023 event held at National War College in Washington DC was yet another for the record books and we here at NDNG were glad to attend in force as well as help sponsor the Dice-Breaker social event.

By Mitch Reed

Recently the folks from Draco Ideas contacted us about looking at some of their games. I have been a huge fan of Draco for some time. One of the first games I picked up from them was Normandy: The Beginning of the End and its solo expansion Alone in the Storm.

I also wrote about their amazing ancients game, Onus Traianus. The two games they sent us, Scope: UBoot and Frontier Wars quickly made it to my table to see what they were all about.