Fight Club Monthly (October 2026 newsletter)

The latest updates from the leading global wargaming community

“To escape the current malaise, the first step is simple but radical: Make general officers fight each other. At least quarterly, officers should compete in time-constrained, decision-forcing games linked to major warfighting scenarios and emerging threat capabilities.” – Benjamin Jensen (excerpt from his Modern War Institute article)

Welcome to the October 2026 edition of Fight Club Monthly!

HERE’S THE QUICK SUMMARY

·         Operation Northern Sentinel is now in progress, come defend the GIUK Gap!

·         John Curry's Battle of Britain 2 is now live, can you keep the Russians out?

·         Take That Bridge! now has 6 new maps, platoon HQs and horse cavalry

·         Take That Hill! was a big hit at The Studio (people stayed up to 6.30pm on a Friday!)

·         Fight Club Deutschland was at the German Command and Staff College again

·         Fight Club España is bringing professional wargaming to Batalladores 2026

·         USA Fight Club has just completed its Ukraine 2014 DFC series

·         Fight Club Italia has just started its Ukraine 2014 TDG challenge

·         Sebastian Bae & Bruce Gudmundsson on the Think.Fight.Learn.Repeat. podcast

·         Ian Robinson on Fight Club Design Series to discuss his Baba Yaga drone wargame

…and now, here’s the full newsletter in detail!

But first… a quick message from our sponsor!

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Onebrief: where superhuman command wins. Visit onebrief.com to learn more.

WHAT HAS FIGHT CLUB BEEN UP TO IN OCTOBER 2026?

Operation Northern Sentinel is now in progress, come defend the GIUK Gap!

Hosted by Fight Club España, Operation Northern Sentinel is a digital wargame that puts you in the shoes of the NATO Maritime Component Commander.

Your task is to get a reinforcement convoy across the Greenland-Iceland-United Kingdom (GIUK) Gap inside a 24-hour window. The threat includes surface warships, long-range aviation and a quiet cruise-missile submarine that intelligence cannot locate.

Ready to defend the GIUK Gap? Register via the Fight Club Discord to take part. Registered players will receive login credentials by e-mail.

John Curry's Battle of Britain 2 is now live, can you keep the Russians out?

We are proud to host Dr John Curry's game Battle of Britain 2, a homeland defence simulation. If you watched Sky's The Wargame then you may want to give this a go.

However, be warned: it is not an easy challenge to get positive VP by the end!

You take the role of the British government during an escalating confrontation with Russia. Before war begins, you must decide what matters most, how far to mobilise, and where to deploy Britain’s limited ships, aircraft and air-defence systems.

If war comes, those decisions are tested immediately.

Cyber attacks, drones, sabotage, missile strikes and naval attacks are resolved one by one. You will see which targets are threatened, which forces are available to respond, and the consequences of every roll.

Later, Britain may take the offensive against Russian naval forces and decide whether to launch a deep strike against Murmansk.

There is no perfect defence. Every decision carries a cost.

Take That Bridge! now has 6 new maps, platoon HQs and horse cavalry

We have added 6 maps to Take That Bridge! (Kenya, High North, Belize, Falklands, Cyprus and Oman) which add new terrain tiles and challenging environmental penalties to soldiers and autonomous systems.

We have also added more features including platoon HQs for junior officer PME, troop deployment across five turns to stagger entry onto the battle map, AAR graphs for more detailed reviews, and casualty markers showing where losses occurred on the final map.

Lastly, what do Take That Bridge! and the British Army have in common? Both are experimenting with horse cavalry in the mounted recce role!

PS: You can still read about Ed’s vibecoding’ journey with Take That Bridge! here and you can still check out my Wargaming Weekly review here.

Take That Hill! Launch Open Day at The Studio was a big hit!

According to the hosts Ruddy Nice, people stuck around longer than expected…

Fight Club Deutschland at the German Command and Staff College again

In October, FCDE was involved with the Wargaming Basics module at FüAkBw once more. Introducing wargaming as educational and analytical tool to members of various branches of the German (and Swiss) Armed Forces and highlighting the benefits of Fight Club as a national and international network of expertise created quite some interest.

In late November/early December FCDE will be involved with the test run of the Expert/Wargame Design course for the Armed Forces. Things are moving and we are looking forward to creating more synergies and opportunities of joint learning experiences.

Fight Club España brings professional wargaming to Batalladores 2026

Fight Club España will participate in Batalladores 2026, one of Spain’s largest historical wargaming conventions, taking place in Zaragoza from 19-22 November. In collaboration with the Spanish Defence Staff’s Wargaming Centre (CWGEMAD), Fight Club España will introduce attendees to professional wargaming and its applications in military planning and decision-making.

The highlight will be an innovative hybrid wargame combining traditional tabletop planning, maps, and counters with digital adjudication using Command: Modern Operations. Participants will design and deploy their forces before seeing their decisions unfold in a real-time simulation, demonstrating how traditional and digital wargaming can complement each other.

USA Fight Club has completed its Ukraine 2014 decision forcing case (DFC) series

This past Saturday, USA Fight Club's Matthew Boyle and Kevin Johnston conducted the last of eight classes in their Sunflowers Burning decision forcing case (DFC) series.

Since Saturday 12 September, participants have been taking on the mantle of General Ruslan Khomchak as he battles Little Green Men in Southern Ukraine in 2014. Fighting with an unorganized regular army and untrained but willing militias, players were opposed by a threat they did not know existed.

Fight Club Italia has launched its Ukraine 2014 tactical decision game (TDG) challenge

Inspired by USA Fight Club's Sunflowers Burning DFC series (in particular this post by Bruce Gudmundsson), this TDG challenge will require players to send their solutions to the tactical problem faced by Ukrainian commanders in Ilovaisk (2014) for later analysis and discussion.

Check out the TDG channel in the Fight Club Discord to participate.

WHAT’S NEW TO WATCH, LISTEN TO & READ?

Think.Fight.Learn.Repeat. Episode 20: Rehearsing For Your Worst Day With Sebastian Bae

Wargaming has gone from a niche practice to something turning up in think tank headlines, service mandates, and hobby shops. This week's guest, Sebastian Bae, has been at the centre of that surge. Sebastian is a senior game designer and research scientist at CNA, a former US Marine Corps infantry sergeant, and the designer of the Littoral Commander wargame series, which is now now used across the joint force, by partner militaries throughout the region, and, as it turns out, aboard at least one PLA Navy ship.

During this episode we get into what's actually driving the boom, and all the ways a wargame can go wrong, whether its rigged designs, general officers putting a thumb on the scale, or the Japanese games played before Midway. Sebastian explains why the Indo-Pacific breaks the World War II paradigm most players bring to the table, what it means when your adversary picks up your game, and why "empty map syndrome" makes unilateral games a poor guide to how a crisis would really unfold.

Think.Fight.Learn.Repeat. Episode 21: Silicon Socrates: Decision-Forcing Cases and the Fight Over PME with Bruce Gudmundsson

Dr. Bruce Gudmundsson has spent thirty years arguing that officers are taught what to think instead of how to think. In this episode he lays out the alternative: the decision-forcing case, a piece of real history handed to a student before they know how it ended, with one question attached. What, Sir, are your orders?

Dr. Gudmundsson is the author of Stormtroop Tactics and On Artillery and a former Case Method Chair at Marine Corps University. He currently teaches at Hampden-Sydney College at the Wilson Center for Leadership in the Public Interest.

For more of Dr. Gudmundsson's work, check out The Tactical Notebook.

Fight Club Design Series – Baba Yaga with Ian Robinson

In this second episode of the Fight Club Design Series, I talk to Ian Robinson, designer of Baba Yaga, a micro-tactical wargame exploring the rapidly evolving use of drones on the modern battlefield.

Inspired by the war in Ukraine, Baba Yaga places small groups of infantry attempting to infiltrate across a contested area against a network of spotting drones, FPV attack drones, bomber drones and uncrewed ground vehicles. The game focuses on detection, concealment, search patterns, movement at night and the challenge of turning a fleeting contact into a successful strike.

The episode includes a practical play-through showing how the double-blind system works, how weather and altitude affect spotting, how drone search patterns can be employed, and how both sides must make decisions with incomplete information.

Ian also discusses the thinking behind the design: why he chose a square grid, how he abstracted contemporary drone warfare into a simple playable model, what has been learned from playtesting, and how professional military users have begun experimenting with the game.

A useful watch for wargame designers, PME practitioners and anyone interested in drones, tactical decision-making, reconnaissance-strike systems and the changing character of land warfare. 

Our webinar page has a fresh new look and is easier to use!

Explore three series and more than 40 hours of content… now all in one place.

Comparing Attitudes Toward Wargaming by Seungwon Yang (승원 양)

Originally shared on LinkedIn, this essay by a Fight Club International member from South Korea explores the different attitudes toward wargaming all over the world...

...and mentions Fight Club rules.

WHAT CAN YOU LOOK FORWARD TO IN OCTOBER?

We have a couple of guests in the pipeline for the Think.Fight.Learn.Repeat. podcast:

·         Jeremy Boss (founded Black Horizon after a 14-year career with the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, where he served as an analyst and innovation thought leader)

·         Peter Singer (co-founder of Useful Fiction which helps governments, militaries, and enterprises communicate complex futures through fiction-based strategic narrative and foresight)

We also have Ed Farren in the pipeline as the next guest on the Fight Club Design Series to discuss his urban warfare wargame Battle for Mosul.

In the meantime, you can check out my Wargaming Weekly review of this game from last year.

Until next time, you can catch the latest updates from Fight Club International on X, LinkedIn, Bluesky, YouTube, and Discord. Also make sure to play one of our analogue games!

Remember to think, fight, learn, repeat!

Yours in hex,

Rwizi.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Rwizi Rweizooba Ainomugisha is a freelance wargame researcher, analyst and designer at Wargaming Weekly, one of the top publications in the world of professional wargaming. Rwizi is also a Guild Member at Mission Grey, a leading provider of external intelligence for corporate decision-making.