In addition to my previous recommendation for An Unexpected Podcast ( An Amazing Book Club ) there are a couple others I've really enjoyed over the last year or so. Although most are related directly to war-gaming this one is purely historical.
But that is exactly what I was looking for in this case. And this time I found them as a sister product for a great magazine I was enjoying...
A few years ago I picked up subscriptions to two e-magazines, both by Karwansaray Publishers. The first was War-games, Soldiers and Strategy ( WSS ) and the other was Ancient Warfare. I enjoyed each of these for about two years and plan on starting the subscriptions up again when I have some more leisure time for reading.
But in the mean time, I found that Ancient Warfare had a companion podcast called, appropriately enough... The Ancient Warfare Podcast .
It has a few core speakers each time with some rotation between them. I believe they are located across a number of geographical locations around the globe based on comments and accents but I have not looked up their bios yet. For the most part they are all pretty easy to understand and the audio quality is pretty good considering they are all participating via a shared call (maybe Skype or such) and one member is doing the recording.
They release monthly, and often they are related to a topic in the upcoming issue of the magazine. However, they have also had some based on various specialty subjects. For example:
* Unconventional Tactics
* Ancient Military Manuals
* Why we love Ancient Warfare
* Simulating Ancient Warfare
As someone that loves historical war-games my two soft spots are World War II and the ancient world ( followed closely by American Civil War, WW I aerial dogfighting and Age of Sail ship battles). Ever since I was young I enjoyed reading about the battles and conquests of Greece, Rome and Carthage primarily, but love nearly anything across the Mediterranean, down into Northern Africa and up through Europe.
I have played some DBA and other random game systems for ancient battles, usually in 10mm or 15mm scales, and really enjoyed them. I have not settled on what system I may choose but am most likely looking to learn and play Hail Caesar by Warlord Games. I have a number of friends that play their other game systems ( Gates of Antares is really popular currently ) and have even joined in a couple times on some Black Powder. Since I like the Black Powder system for future American Civil War gaming I thought it would be good to play two similarly designed rule sets and so Hail Caesar is a good choice for me.
With that whole tangent aside, the Ancient Warfare magazine and podcast are treasure troves for inspiration and information. To plug into the podcast is like sitting down in a room and just listening to a number of experts discuss sources of information, historical references and ambiguity, social and economic context, etc. All in a down-to-earth, easy to follow (if you catch the accents well enough) and sometimes humors way.