Been totally swamped with work lately. Back soon (when spring finally arrives). Have some great guest lined up. Great to see continued strong interest (emails, posts and downloads) in Guns, Dice, Butter.

Been quite busy with real life work lately and likely to be for the next month. Do have a couple of great guests lined up that I hope to squeeze in soon.

Also, had a great time at Swampcon; Thanks Jimbo! AAR link below:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/929982/why-we-game/new

Thanks for your support; just passed 20,000 downloads for GDB (Guns, Dice, Butter). Planning to take a break for a month or so.

Welcome to Episode XIII of Guns, Dice, Butter: (Season 2: #3)

Episode XIII will feature a conversation with Don Greenwood; convention director WBC, Avalon Hill chief of staff, designer/developer of many great wargames (ASL! , 3rd Reich, Breakout Normandy, etc) and consummate gamer.

Hope to post in early Feb 2013.

Welcome to Episode XII of Guns, Dice, Butter: (Season 2: #2)

0:01 Intro

0:11 Jim Dunnigan, a co-founder of modern wargaming and SPI

1:20 Wrap up

1:25 SPI Commercial (the first ever commercial on Guns, Dice, Butter)

Survey of Dunnigan games ("top" 100) available on www.gunsdicebutter.com, www.consimworld.com GDB discussion board or GDB Guild on www.boardgamegeek.com 

Jim Dunnigan's website www.strategypage.com 

Episode XII will be a conversation with one of the founders of wargaming and SPI, Jim Dunnigan. Hope to have it posted in a few days.

Link to survey of Dunnigan games on the GDB consimworld website:

http://talk.consimworld.com/WebX?233@@.1dd6d36f/258!enclosure=.1dd81bcc

Link to BGG thread when Mr.Dunnigan featured as a wargame designer:

http://rpggeek.com/thread/602022/bgg-wargame-designer-of-the-month-jim-dunnigan/page/1 

Also, a discussion of Dunnigan games here: 

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/912147/dunnigan-designs-...

Welcome to Episode XI of Guns, Dice, Butter: (Season 2: #1)

0:01 Intro: Wargamer recruitment, mini wargame cons in Jan/Feb and other odds and ends.

0:07 Conversation with Fred Schachter, designer of Siege of Jerusalem (SoJ). Fred tells about his early days in the hobby at SPI, designer SoJ, his work on The Napoleonic Wars series of games and few games in development (Rebel Raiders, Mussolini.

1:07 Conversation with Enrico Viglino (game reviewer {video BGG} extraordinaire) regarding wargames covering the ancients period: Rome and Greece. We discuss 30+ games in this space. See website for two data files regarding these games.

2:37  Wrap up, shout outs, more industry news, a bit on Triumph of Fascism, next episode previews and other bits and bobs.

For more info:

www.gunsdicebutter.com , discussion board on consimworld.com and a guild on boardgamegeek.com

Happy Holidays 2012, tribe! Again, thank you for your listening support during our first year of Guns, Dice, Butter. 

Hope to have the first episode on 2013 posted just after the new year. It will cover ancients wargames: Greece & Rome. Already have it 1/2 finished; a great conversation with a designer of one of these games. Just need to get the panel discussion with the gamers finished.

And, a link to the data file: 

http://talk.consimworld.com/WebX?233@@.1dd6d36f/235!enclosure=.1dd80d53  

...associated with the chart below. Many great ancients games to be played in 2013. 

Have been on binge of ancients gaming lately; session reports of PAX, Siege of Jerusalem, Caesar at Alesia and The Siege of Alesia posted on BGG (boardgamegeek.com) for each of these titles.

Mentioned this on the podcast: an excellent list on BGG (boardgamegeek.com) by Tom Grant (host of the podcast I've Been Diced) regarding insurgencies and wargames that inspired episode X of Guns, Dice, Butter:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geeklist/6478/insurgency-and-terrorism 

Many of us have been using BGG for years. For those of you new to BGG, just scroll down the list, click on the game that interests you and away you go (you'll be dumped to the game page that has a ton of resources: files, lists, forums, ratings, comments, etc related to the game.

BGG is an incredible resource for the gaming hobby: EVERY board game ever published has its own "page".

Also, stumbled across this article on the Roman model we briefly discussed on Episode X:

http://smallwarsjournal.com/jrnl/art/they-make-a-solitude-and-call-it-peace-counterinsurgency-the-roman-model