Fight Club Monthly (September 2026 newsletter)

The latest updates from the leading global wargaming community

“Why, while the clouds of war thickened above them, would a group of serious-minded, middle-aged men waste their time on a board game?” - Simon Parkin, A Game of Birds and Wolves

Welcome to the September 2026 edition of Fight Club Monthly!

HERE’S THE QUICK SUMMARY

·         Take That Bridge! continues to evolve – you now have to hold the bridge!

·         HexWar showcased the digital version of Take That Hill! at The Studio

·         Fight Club España is hosting a new digital wargame Operation Northern Sentinel

·         USA Fight Club is back with more DFCs, this time about Ukraine in 2014

·         Fight Club Italia recently ran a demonstration TDG for Italian officers

·         Fight Club Polska successfully hosted a wargaming conference

·         UK Fight Club is calling for volunteers to organise chapter activities

·         The latest update from LTCOL Mark Gibson on what we’re doing with Steel Beasts

·         Reminder: come earn Fight Club badges and climb the Hall of Honour leaderboard!

·         A new Think.Fight.Learn.Repeat. episode & a pilot episode of Fight Club Design Series

·         Ruddy Nice is hosting another Open Day at The Studio in Salisbury for Take That Hill!

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

But first… a quick message from our sponsor!

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WHAT HAS FIGHT CLUB BEEN UP TO IN SEPTEMBER 2026?

Take That Bridge! continues to evolve – you now have to hold the bridge!

Take That Bridge! now has two linked campaign missions. The first is to take the bridge, the second is to hold it. You can play both independently or play the first into the second. Casualties may not be replaced, enemy survivors re-appear to reinforce the enemy attack.

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

HexWar showcased Take That Hill! at The Studio

On 9th September, HexWar joined Ruddy Nice at The Studio for an engaging day of wargaming with civil servants across multiple departments, getting to showcase some of their games including Company Commander and Take That Hill! (Digital).

Fight Club España is preparing for Operation Northern Sentinel

Our next digital wargame opens in October and moves to the North Atlantic. NATO is reinforcing Europe across the Atlantic while tension with OPFOR is rising. OPFOR naval and air forces have left their northern bases under the cover of an announced exercise and have not said what they intend.

You take the role 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.

Your force is small. You have a few maritime patrol aircraft, a handful of warships and submarines, limited air cover and intermittent surveillance, and they cannot cover three sub-gaps and the convoy at once.

You will have to decide where to concentrate and which risks to accept, and you will have to act on incomplete information with neutral shipping on the same routes. A hasty engagement against a poorly identified contact counts as a failure, whatever its tactical result.

The game has two turns and you play it at your own pace, either individually or as a group sharing one account. You submit a standing plan through the web platform, and the white cell adjudicates it offline. You then receive the friction your plan has run into and submit a response, including a committed forecast of OPFOR's next move.

The exercise ends with a scored After Action Report that measures your decisions against what OPFOR actually did. As in our previous digital wargames, you must register via the Fight Club Discord to take part. Registered players will receive login credentials by e-mail.

USA Fight Club is back with more DFCs, this time about Ukraine in 2014

Starting Saturday, 12 September, USA Fight Club's Decision Forcing Cases (DFCs) series returned with classes taken from recent history.

In Sunflowers Burning, participants take 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, you will be opposed by a threat you did not know existed.

You can join on Saturdays either at noon or at 1800 (both times are in EST) via this Zoom link. Sign in with the number: 651 527 1000, then verify with 651527.

Fight Club Italia recently ran a demonstration TDG for Italian officers

Lorenzo Nanetti leveraged Fight Club Italia for a demonstration TDG while preparing to teach a "Leadership challenges in a fragile context" module about Stability Policing (as defined under NATO AJP-3.22) inside a wider course for senior officers at Scuola Ufficiali Carabinieri (Carabinieri Officers' School) in Rome.

Fight Club Polska successfully hosted a wargaming conference

The 2nd International Scientific Conference Wargaming AWL, held on 15–17 September 2026 at the General Tadeusz Kościuszko Military University of Land Forces in Wrocław, was one of the most significant events of the year devoted to professional wargaming, modern training methods, and the application of emerging technologies in the security and defence environment.

Source: AWL

Held under the theme “Comprehensive Security: Advancing Wargaming in Military and Non-Military Domains,” the conference brought together representatives of armed forces, NATO, foreign military and civilian universities, government institutions, research centres, experts, and industry. The programme featured individual presentations, international discussion panels, demonstrations of wargaming and simulation systems, an extensive exhibition zone, and the Rector’s Cup Tournament.

Source: AWL

Particular attention was devoted to command development, military transformation, high-intensity conflict, unmanned and autonomous systems, artificial intelligence, cyberspace, national resilience, and the use of wargaming as a tool for educating and preparing future commanders.

Source: AWL

One of the most important moments of the conference was the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between AWL and Marine Corps University, opening new opportunities for educational, scientific, and training cooperation with one of the leading professional military education institutions of the United States Marine Corps.

The originator of the event and Chairman of the Organizing Committee was Major Łukasz Wójciak Head of the Territorial Defence Department, Faculty of Command, AWL, who was responsible for developing the overall concept of the conference, shaping its substantive programme, and building an international network of partners committed to advancing professional wargaming.

Source: AWL

The conference was designed not as a one-off promotional event, but as part of a broader process of modernising military education at AWL, aimed at improving the quality of officer education, strengthening analytical and decision-making skills, and introducing innovative training tools. Its importance was reflected both in the participation of highly experienced experts and representatives of renowned international institutions, and in the wide range of practical applications demonstrated throughout the event.

The conference was complemented by the 4th Strategic Games Convention for Veterans, co-organised with the Centre for Veterans of Operations Outside the State, adding an important community-building and integration dimension to the initiative. Overall, the event confirmed the growing position of the Military University of Land Forces as an institution actively advancing modern approaches to wargaming, military education, and training innovation.

Source: AWL

UK Fight Club is calling for volunteers

UK Fight Club has been quiet for a while, not for lack of talent, but because many of our most active UK members have been channelling their energy into building FCI. A global community is only as strong as its local roots, though, and the UK chapter needs people who can turn that expertise into events closer to home.

We're looking for a few UK-based volunteers to organise chapter activities, whether that's a casual evening game, a themed workshop, or a full-day professional wargaming meetup. You don't need to be a seasoned designer or to have run a chapter before, just some enthusiasm, a few hours a month, and a willingness to get people around a table.

If that sounds like you, get in touch with Richard Millington via the Fight Club Discord and help us bring UK Fight Club back to life.

UPDATE: Steel Beasts SITREP for September

By LTCOL Mark Gibson, RAAC, ADF *

* Disclaimer: Whilst a serving Officer, any views or opinions expressed below are my views only and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Australian Army, The Department of Defence, or The Commonwealth of Australia.

We are still in “post vacation” mode for many. However, one of the core attendees (Doug Miller) has developed a smaller, US centric scenario based on the National Training Centre (NTC) aka. Fort Irwin:

From there an intrepid Turkish member Koray came up with an outline plan:

We then had a session on OCOKA and Course of Action (COA) planning:

• Observation and Fields of Fire,

• Cover and Concealment,

• Obstacles,

• Key Terrain, and

• Avenues of Approach

To review his plan against those points and discuss his concept, coming up with some worked overlays (the image below). Then we went onto discuss phasing/troops to task and used the sim to generate "sim world" figures for rates of advance, etc. in order to inform artillery planning, etc. Koray used the sim to answer some RFIs such as "can you resupply Infantry with loitering munitions?" and further refine his plan.

Our commonly asked questions / review topics now compise:

·         Flying helicopters (general principles).

·         Setting up and using on board indirect like mortars etc.

·         The use of smoke in the attack.

·         Principles for conducting an attack by Mechanised Infantry.

·         Employment of Obstacles.

- Discussing the minefield bridge combination and the siting of the Abatis.

·         Fighting/Clearing urban areas.

- You don't clear a town by driving APCs through and hoping no one shoots at you.

- Similarly, one Platoon can't clear several grid squares in 5 minutes.

- What do you do with the ATGM teams?

- Considerations for the scenario designer.

REMINDER: Fight Club International Hall of Honour

Do you have a Fight Club badge?

If not, what are you waiting for?!

If yes, why not earn some more!

From teaching a seminar to building a digital scenario, from competing in tournaments to analyzing game data, each badge marks a real contribution you have made to making Fight Club the leading global wargaming community…

…and now, we have a whole Hall of Honour dedicated to recognizing your efforts.

You can search your name on the Hall of Honour leaderboad to see how many badges you have (or even search another member’s name if you’re nosy and competitive like me!)

Mark Gibson is currently in the lead with 6 badges, who will earn more badges this month and dethrone him?

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

Think.Fight.Learn.Repeat. Episode 19: From Zombies to the Pentagon With Max Brooks

In this episode, Lex Luciak sits down with Max Brooks, author of World War Z and The Zombie Survival Guide, who has spent two decades briefing generals, red-teaming with the Marine Corps, and turning worst-case scenarios into real lessons for the people who plan for them.

The discussion covers which parts of World War Z have eerily come true, why fiction beats a briefing every time, his thoughts on "predictable surprises", and a look at his next book.

This is a conversation about storytelling, national psychology, and the fiction surrounding it.

PS: Fight Club International is excited to announce that Onebrief is now sponsoring the Think.Fight.Learn.Repeat. podcast.

FCI Design Series - Supply and Steel with Ed Farren

In this first episode of the Fight Club Design Series, I talk to Ed Farren, the designer of Supply and Steel, a World War II operational logistics wargame focused on the challenges of sustaining combat power across a contested theatre.

Our discussion walks through the game’s core mechanics, including supply movement, logistics points, air interdiction, combat, replenishment, rail networks and the pressures placed on both Allied and German commanders. It also explores the design choices behind the point-to-point map, unit scale, abstraction and the decision to make logistics—not combat—the central problem players must solve.

The second half turns to the design process itself: balancing supply against operational freedom, iterative playtesting, optional rules, and the lessons learned from turning a complex historical logistics problem into a playable wargame.

A useful watch for wargame designers, PME practitioners, military professionals and anyone interested in operational logistics and game design.

PS: You can also check out my Wargaming Weekly review of Supply and Steel.

Ed Farren shares more on AI in wargaming

Ed takes us further under the hood of 'vibe coding' a wargame like Take That Bridge!

WHAT CAN YOU LOOK FORWARD TO IN OCTOBER?

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

·         Dr. Bruce Gudmundsson (wargaming instructor and author of The Tactical Notebook)

·         Sebastian Bae (designer of Littoral Commander: Indo-Pacific)

We also have Ian Robinson (designer of drone wargame Baba Yaga) in the pipeline as the next guest on the Fight Club Design Series.

Lastly, on Wednesday, 9th October 2026, 10:00 – 16:00 BST, Ruddy Nice is hosting another Open Day at The Studio in Salisbury to dive into Take That Hill, the official digital adaptation of the tabletop primer from Fight Club International. Prizes and bragging rights up for grabs!

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!

Oh, and in case you’ve been wondering what exactly that means, Jerry Hall recently explained…

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.