As part of the survey conducted for the article recently posted on A Fast Game, I sort permission to publish each designer’s response in a follow-up post. I didn’t anticipate the number of respondents, or the weight of text contributed (all up, around 37,000 words), so what had been envisaged as a single supplementary post will now be split over three posts. I encourage anyone interested in game design to read through these contributions. Some are brief, others quite long but all are worthwhile.
I have decided to present the collected data in alphabetical order by first name, in keeping with the taxonomy used by Boardgamegeek.com. This raises my librarian hackles, but it seemed to make sense while collating the data during analysis, and at this point I no longer possess the wherewithal re-format the entire set.
The respondents were asked to offer answers to two questions:
Question 1: What was your first wargame (or historical game) design; not necessarily your first published game – that you worked up to a point where it felt “done”?
Question 2: Why did you pick that topic or historical situation to make a game about?
In most instances, I have numbered the responses. Some respondents didn’t strictly follow the two-question format and answered in a more free-form manner. In these other cases I have dispensed with the question number schema.
For ease of reading, this appendix has been broken down into five parts. The other parts can be accessed using the links below:
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Scott
Holmgren
Q1 I started wargaming in junior high
in the late 70s. In the mid-90s I got more engaged with the rise of desktop
publishing and begin helping Kerry Anderson and his Microgame Design Group
designing game covers and a website. I also worked with Rob Markham and got to
know Paul Rohrbaugh and Perry Moore. I also worked with Bill Gibbs and Omega Games. It was at that point that decided to design my first war-game.
My first game was Fire in Mississippi (Blue Guidon Games, 1999) that I self-published as https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamepublisher/961/blue-guidon-games. It simulated the October 1862 battle of Corinth in the American Civil War. I wore all the production hats and had a great team of play testers provide feedback. That was in 1999. In 2003 I published a follow up, Thunder on South Mountain (Blue Guidon Games, 2000), using the same game system on that battle in September 1862, that won the CSR Award for best DTP game. In 2005 I re-developed and published the Perry Moore designed The SS Abyss (Blue Guidon Games, 1995) that covered WW2 in Hungary 1945.
Q2 I picked the battle of Corinth for
my first design because the Civil War is my primary interest for military
history. It also was a battle that didn’t seem to get much attention. I know
SPI had published Richard Berg’s Corinth game in 1981, but I was unfamiliar
with it, though I had the Pea Ridge game from the GBACW series. Because of its
smaller scale, I figured Corinth would be easier to wrap my brain around in
scope and to test the things I wanted my game to focus on.
I’ll also invite you to check out my Civil War podcast, Breaking Nation. It’s available on Apple, Spotify, wherever you get your podcast fix.
-----
 |
| Radetzky's March: the Road to Novara (Dissimula Edizioni, was the Second (revised) Edition of Radetzky's March: the Hundred Hours' Campaign. |
Sergio
Schiavi
So, my first wargame was Radetzky's March: the Hundred Hours Campaign (Dissimula Edizioni, 2018). You should know, however, that it has had two editions released within a relatively short period of time. Although the core system is essentially the same, the two editions differ significantly in several respects: the number of maps, a revised order of battle, a streamlined rulebook, more options to increase replayability, and, perhaps most importantly, much larger counters.
-----
Steffen
Beck
Q1 I have only one real wargame, Dune: Struggle for Arrakis (Web-published, 2017). It feels pretty done but of
course I often want to tweak a few things.
Q2 I love the Dune world. It’s that simple, and I thought it was odd that (at that time) no one had made a proper wargame about the topic.
-----
Stephen
Newberg
Q1 My first design was also my first
published; it was SSN: Modern Tactical Submarine Warfare (GDW, 1975).
Q2 At the time I was in the US military with a specialization in submarine tactical employment. The design dealt with that topic and its military version was created to help game out submarine and anti-submarine usage. I later created a commercial version, and then spent over a year getting it security cleared for civilian publication.
This basic
sequence of events happened with a number of my later projects covering current
or projected military activities as well, but by the 1990s it had become so
difficult and time consuming that I have not done a project dealing with
current military employment of any type since.
-----
Stephen
R. Welch
Q1 My first wargame design that I worked to the "done" point was, in fact, my first published wargame, Chandragupta (GMT Games, 2008).
Q2 I picked this topic because I was a
huge Great Battles of History series (GMT Games) player and fan at the
time, and I wanted to introduce Indian military history to the hobby in general
and the GBoH series in particular. I felt that the history of the Subcontinent
was under-represented and thought there would be interest. I became interested
in Indian military history through my wife, who is Indian.
-----
Steve
Dixon
Q1 My first war game design was B-29 Superfortress (Legion Wargames, 2008). Shawn Rife was my partner at the
time. The game was also my first published game. Legion Wargames thought it
good enough to publish in 2008. It was nominated as best historical board games
by Games magazine that year but lost to GMT's entry.
Q2 I am an Air Force brat and a WW2
amateur historian. Been around aircraft all my life: first the USAF when my dad
served, then I served in the Marines with VMFA-251. I worked on the F-4J
Phantom II. Later on in civilian life I ended up working for a company that
manufactured cabin emergency exit trainers for the airline industry.
My mom lived
through her childhood in Nazi-occupied France and my grandfather served as a
combat engineer with the 70th Infantry Division (ETO) during WW2. While my dad
was stationed at Kadena AB, Okinawa from 1965-1970, I learned that Okinawa was
the last land battle of the Pacific War. I explored that island whenever I
could, finding items to sell to the battle museum on Fort Sukiran. So WW2 is in
my blood. Combined with my love for aviation, the majority of my game designs
cover WW2 aviation. Since I played B-17: Queen of the Skies (Avalon
Hill, 1981) quite often at the time, I though the game mechanics would provide
a good foundation to design B-29.
Incidentally,
I was introduced to war games in 1967 receiving three Avalon Hill games as
Christmas presents (D-Day (Avalon Hill, 1961), Battle of the Bulge
(Avalon Hill, 1965), and Jutland (Avalon Hill, 1967)). Been playing ever
since.
-----
Steve
Fratt
In the 1960s
my dad, a buyer at Sears, took me to the movies at least twice a month and made
sure I received Marx playsets for Christmas. My unsophisticated games were
simple: 1) use as many soldiers as possible, 2) use a d6...declare Infantry,
need to roll a 1 or 2... declare cannon, need a hard 6 to knock down that many
figures. But then he brought back Joseph Morchauser’s How to Play Wargames
from New York in 1966.This introduced me to historical contexts for my games,
but more importantly...I began buying Jack Scruby’s 20mm figures...Greeks and
Persians (I still have them). I even met him in 1970 on trips to Visalia and
then, Cambria.
I was into
Napoleonics in college. I cranked out a 200-page Honors project on the Waterloo
Campaign, complete with maps on the facing pages like the West Point atlases.
We played Scotty Bowden’s Empire II (Empire Games, 1977) all the time.
Norm Flam of the Last Grenadier in Burbank, CA invited George Jeffrey to come
out and introduce us to his ideas on the “variable length bound” which played
like a Kriegsspiel game. Now, the minions at the Grenadier would have
none of it since they preferred the “chess-like” procedure of having QUARTER
TURNS for Empire II (five-minute turns), they wanted to play chess while they
admired their beautifully painted figures. I asked George to take me on for
correspondence, but he said he was too busy... but, he said, “you ought to get
in touch with this guy... Paddy Griffith! My life completely changed.
Paddy became a good friend, and we began a dialogue over the issue of chaos vs
order on the real battlefield. Paddy was my tutor for a higher level of source
analysis as an historian... add common sense.
While
reading Scottish sermons at the Huntington Library in Pasadena, CA for my
dissertation (Enlightenment intellectual history) I pulled some books on the
Civil War and into one on the 22nd Massachusetts where I read at 1st Bull Run,
they “equalized companies under fire!” Clearly not your usual primary source
dealing with hardtack and coffee. Paddy encouraged me to write an article and
submit it to Gunther Rothenburg’s Indiana Military History Journal. So,
I had my first serious article on military history. Thirty years later, Earl
Hess noted my contribution to his thinking on Civil War tactics on how drill
instilled some lingering order on the chaotic battlefield.
I also had
the honor of being a part of Griffith’s Battle Tactics of the Civil War
in the late 80s. So, my academic career had a serious impact on my thinking on
war gaming.
Another line
of influence on me was my entry into the world of living history... reenacting.
In graduate school (UCSB) I learned sabre fencing and had the opportunity to
teach it for one quarter when our Hungarian maestro passed three days before
the beginning of the quarter. One of my students was a fighter in the Society
for Creative Anachronism - practical medieval combat. By the end of the
quarter, I had become Steven Westbourg of Flanders, a Flemish knight supporting
the city of Courtrai during the early 1300s. Academic moves to Kansas and then
Chicago prevented me from advancing in rank in the society, but I caught the
living history bug, so I expanded my historical kits from the middle-ages, to
Greece, Rome, and the Civil War and WWII. This participation impacted my
creative imagination of what actually happened in combat across the ages. After
moving to Chicago (Trinity International University) I spent eight years in the
90s being a Confederate at Sharpsburg 997: 13000) and Gettysburg (98: 30000 military!)
In 2000 I was invited to command the 19th IL, Chicago Zouaves, so I went
Federal. I served as the adjutant for the Illinois Battalion for ten years made
drill and tactics second nature to me. In 2011at the beginning of the 150th
season, I had become the Chief of Staff for the 1st Brigade, IL Vols and then
became the commanding Colonel of the brigade, creating battles for the public
and participating at a high level on staff at national events.
So, I have
laid out the academic and living history backgrounds influencing my tabletop
thinking. For years I used Empire II and [Brigade] Fire and Fury (Fire
and Fury, 1990) for my games. But then in 2013, when I won the main prize for
my Three Days at Gettysburg for the Little Wars convention, I had an epiphany!
When we had 20 Confederate batteries fire upon Cemetery Hill, dutifully
measuring and applying modifiers to see if we could hit anything, and coming up
empty, I left the convention thinking, “there is something wrong here! There
must be a better way!” So, I went back to reading new books on Gettysburg and
Waterloo and integrated that with my own experience on faux battlefields.
The major
design concept that I stumbled on was that we were attached to the notion (from
our board gaming experience) that we resolved our miniature battles with the
roll of a single 1d6 modified by pages of charts that realized the historical
accuracy we sought for our games. The huge problem with this traditional
approach was that we embraced a disconnect between thumbing through tons of
charts, taking our eyes off the gaming table to achieve our cherished claim to
“historical accuracy.” We lost so many musket age gamers because they got too
frustrated with the overwhelming numbers of charts, we had to use to
distinguish between the three universes of the different arms: infantry,
cavalry, artillery. I decided I needed to move away from the single die roll
resolution model and break that up to numerous die rolls that retained the
integrity of each of the three arms: infantry, cavalry, artillery.
The
Artillery
In my
live-fire experience with Civil War cannons, I noticed that after a sounding
shot or two, we could hit our rather large footprint of an enemy brigade, every
time for 30 minutes! This reality implied our Fire and Fury procedure was,
logical as a reasonable gaming device, but did not reflect reality! In the real
world, the artillery would hit any targets that moved through their field of
fire. It dawned on me I should not test to see if the artillery could hit the
enemy... the proper procedure was to check the morale of the receiving unit to
see how it responded to enemy fire. My academic reading on units in battle
revealed that there was quite a breadth of outcomes off units receiving fire.
Some would take losses and shake it off any reduction in their cohesion while
others could be severely punished by a few horrific hits. What this suggested
is that batteries should set up their fire missions for the 30-minute turn and
then note all enemies moving through their field of fire during the turn and
testing their morale based on how close they got to the battery during the
move. My range sticks {a range chart sitting on the table, rather than being
found on pages of charts} indicated the range at which units would need to take
one, two, or three morale checks after moving. This approach helped speed up
game play. Opposing players would place markers on units for receiving fire
during their movement, and then make morale checks to see if their
morale/cohesion dropped as a result. So, what about Morale/Cohesion?
Unit Morale
and Cohesion
Every Unit
begins with a Colored Cohesion rating that also includes a Morale number.
Numbers 1-4 are Yellow (d6) raw conscripts, 5 and 6 are Green (d8) experienced
soldiers, 7 and 8 are Blue (d10) seasoned, 9 and 10 are Red (d12) veterans and
11 and 12 are Purple (d20) Old Guard.
I also have
a dashboard tray with magnetized labels to place over the original unit label.
When a unit makes a Morale test, the roll a d10 trying to match the current
morale number or lower. If they do, they “make” Morale and are okay. If they
roll higher, they fail and are required to drop down as many times as they fail
their morale: if you begin at 8 and fail three morale checks, you end up at 5 -
but also note that the Blue 8 is now a Green 5. The color automatically changes
with the new label. The Color is important because that is the color of Combat
die you now roll. If firing at the enemy, you roll your combat die and need to
get a 6 or better to get a Hit, forcing the enemy to test its morale, once for
each Hit. When you reach Zero, the unit routs. This system keeps all the
bookkeeping on the table with the unit so you do not have to look away from the
table at a roster sheet. You always know what your current Cohesion rating is
by looking at the color on the label... that is your Combat Die color, when
firing you always need a 6 or better.
Integrated
Movement
My ground
scale is 1" = 50 yds [which can also be pro-rated to 1" = 100yds],
30-minute turns, so Infantry moves 1200 yds in 30 minutes = 24" and
Cavalry moves 28." Movement is conducted in an integrated manner. Players
roll a contested die roll based on the ability of their overall commanders for
the battlefield [or portion thereof if divided into sections] - if course the
die rolled is one of the colors: yellow [d6], green [d8], blue [d10], red
[d12], purple [20]. The winner decides which flank will begin movement. Think
of a laser beam aligned with the flank and it begins to move across the length
of the table, it touches units on both sides of the table. When a unit is
touched, it moves for the turn and so on down the line. All players are glued
to movement as it is conducted across the table. This really speeds things up!
In addition, moving units 24" per turn instead of a measly 6"
reflects reality better as you unleash your troops into battle, instead of
moving them, controlled, like chess pieces across the table. When I run a game
and ask a player what they want to do with a unit, they typically will say
“move it forward” - to which I say “how far along their 24"? - the player
is uncomfortable with moving so far out of their control. I then say, you want
to attack this enemy unit, right? Yes. So, bring out a 3" Red Arrow, place
it against your chosen target, and then we ask, is you unit within 24" of
the base of the arrow? Yes, so pick up your unit and set it at the base of the
arrow! We usually do not need to bring out a measuring tape or ruler because it
is so obvious to the eye. Note that a defending unit receive an attack is
frozen in place and cannot move on its own. The advantage of choosing the
operational flank for movement now becomes apparent. You can launch a series of
attacks across the front that fixes the enemy in place. We now see that ii is
important to have a second line o reserves to support the front line. That
3" arrow represents 150yds which is dealt with when we resolve Close
Actions after movement is over. For Cavalry, the charge range is 8"
[400yds] the distance cavalry may cross in 2 minutes. We will pick that up
later.
Infantry
Combat and the Cohesion Labels
So, when we
resolve Close Actions, we go back to the original flank from which movement
began and take care of them in the same sequence we used to conduct movement.
So for a Close Action, an infantry unit needs to check its morale to see if it
has the where with all to charge into the enemy. If it succeeds, it goes in. If
it fails, it waddles up to 50yds and engages in a Firefight -it’s attack has
failed and the indecisive Firefight begins. I think this reflects most
accurately what happens on real battlefield. Decisive resolution of Close
Actions means the attacking unit goes in with a bayonet charge to force the
defender to flee and thus its position might be taken! I remember one player
asked me “how close do I have to be to shoot.” My response usually is “if you
stop to shoot, your attack has failed! A true teachable moment. But that is how
they fought -is the reply. Exactly! They were not trained to make real charges
to force the enemy to flee! Of course, there are examples of bayonet charge:
Lawrence and the 20th Maine at Little Round Top.
Now this is
where leadership comes in. I have Division, Corps, Army commanders rated for
their personal command ability - by die color, and rated for the efficiency of
their HQ by having a number of Staff Officers: generally, 1 for every brigade
under their command for Division leaders, number of divisions for a Corps
commander etc. Fewer Staff if less efficient, more if more efficient. These
Staff Officers function in several ways. If a unit does not make morale
forgoing into Close Action, send a Staff to re-roll. If that fails, may repeat
as much as you want, keeping in mind Staff might not be available for other
actions that turn [and the next - I takes 1turn to recover them back to the HQ]
In Close Action, you many send 1 in as a +1 modifier -however, that is +1 for
any number of Staff with the unit, not for each one. Movement is generally
straight forward or oblique by 22 ½ degrees right or left...if you want to
maneuver outside that zone, send in 1 Staff as a guide for that unit. When you
want to rally units, send in 1 Staff to rally it up 1 full color [from Green to
Blue 8], or 2 Staff to rally up 2 full colors (from Yellow, to Blue 8). This is
probably my most unique contribution. Lots of rules take 15-20 minutes to
figure out “which units are in command.” In my reenacting experience, they have
their orders - I purposefully do not game this - but need command attention for
the special or unexpected situations, especially in combat as I describe above.
Back to the
action. So, I the attacker goes in, the defender checks morale to see if they
let off a full volley or a half volley of defensive fire: full volley, 1 die
per stand, half volley 1 die per 2stands. All hits force the attacker to test
morale that many times. This gives the defender a realistic advantage of
defense. So the attacker might find their Cohesion will drop one, or perhaps
two color levels, giving it a disadvantage in combat. Now we are ready for the
final resolution. Both sides take their current combat die color, and then
apply modifiers. Unlike other games which have modifiers on charts, I place
modifiers on playing cards. Players look through their cards and lay down on
the table the modifiers which apply. Advantages, you do not have to remember
them in your head or count them on your fingers. So after rolling the dice and
applying modifiers, if one side has a 2 to 1 ratio or better over the other,
they have defeated the foe. You lose 1 Cohesion for the win [wear and tear] and
the loser drops 2, or more Cohesion for the loss (3 to 1 defeat, drop 3, 4 to 1
defeat, drop 4, etc) If the loser reaches zero, it Routs off the field.
If neither
side gets a 2 to 1 advantage, they are caught in a Firefight until next turn.
However, the Attacker [who has the initiative] may send in a Staff to have both
players re-roll their dice. This may be repeated as long as you can send in a
new Staff Officer.
Cavalry
As I studied
Napoleonic battles which had more battlefield cavalry, I realized I needed a
separate routine for them. Cavalry moves to within 8" [400yds] of the
target during the move because they can cover the final space in two minutes. I
asked my chief of cavalry what the normal gait was for horses on the
battlefield - she said “at the walk, sir” of course, you rest the horses until
you unleash them into the fray. Since I have artillery fire right after the
move, the 8" leaves an open LOS to enemy infantry, especially in squares,
to be fired on by artillery before the cavalry charges in! No special rules
needed here, it just works because of the procedure.
Studying the
Battle of Quatre Bras, I noted Guiton’s Cuirassiers attacked six battalions.
Usually, our procedure is attack one unit with the entire and hope for bonus
charges. Melarchy! Have the Cuirassiers attack by Squadrons so they split up
against several targets! To resolve their charge, they do not need to roll
morale, the horses want to charge by the herd into the fray! Send in the 1st
Squadron, the infantry are in square, or if not, they roll a critical morale
test [need to roll half, rounded down to form square]. Now consider modifiers:
if not in Square, infantry are -5, if in square, cavalry are -3. If the cavalry
Squadron make 2 to 1 or more against the infantry, they drop that many
Cohesion. The cavalry loses nothing and stays in place. It attacks again but
the infantry needs to use the new Cohesion color for its own die. If the
cavalry does not make 2 to 1or better, it is rallies back behind the parent
unit, spent but not defeated. The riders could not get the horses to continue
so they pull back to regroup but they are not psychologically defeated. They will need to rest a turn to be ready to
fight again. The cavalry commander may send in another Squadron or may abort
the attack. Of course, there is more to it, but I think the concept is laid out
here.
Finally,
what about casualties? During the turn, units accumulate chits for their
intensity in combat. This also might include combat vs Skirmishers. I place
skirmishers out between the armies but so not combat with them. They tend to
neutralize each other. Where they do count is when larger parent units attack.
I have skirmishers fire at each other. The side with more hits places that many
chits on the enemy parent unit. So at the end of the turn, each unit tests once
per chit. If the unit cohesion is in the Yellow zone
(1, 2, 3, 4)
it rolls twice for each chit. All fails cause the elimination of 1 enemy stand.
I want players to realize it is the combat ability of a unit, not casualties
that really matter. I small unit might still be battle worthy while big units
might not be. At Antietam the largest Federal units were in the 12th Corps and
they were green! (Yellow 4.)
So, what
have I done:
1) place
morale and cohesion in the proper place over casualty production
2)
leadership is portrayed in a tangible, concrete way, mainly through its Staff
3) movement
more realistic - 1200 yds per 30-minute turn [actually 36" / turn is 2
miles/hr]
4)
integrated movement faster
5) combat at
the point of the bayonet is more decisive than firefights
6)
experienced players should be able to game a large battle on a long Saturday
-----
Steve L.
Kling Jr
Q1 Death or Victory: The French and Indian War (Self-published, 2013). It was a limited war geographically with
small number of units with a wealth of available historical information, making
it a good choice for a first game.
Q2 I have always been interested in
history since I was a young boy. My interests were reinforced by my father who
was a graduate of New York Military Academy in the cavalry company, a feeder
school for West Point. He used to take me to classic movies like El Cid,
Lawrence of Arabia, The 300 Spartans, 55 Days at Peking, etc., and after
watching these movies, I always wanted to know more. I was also dropped off at
the local library every Saturday as my mother was busy and I gravitated toward
the history and biography sections. The modern remake of the Last of the
Mohicans was sort of the inspiration for my first game which I played around
with for a few years before I posted it on BGG in 2013.
-----
Steve
Pole
Q1 By way of background, I have
always been fascinated by history, especially military history. When I was very
young this manifested itself in making military models - Airfix planes and
tanks - and painting miniatures. Having absolutely no talent in this regard, my
friends, who shared similar interests, and I were delighted to discover AH and
SPI games. These enabled us to play wargames without the need to spend hours
making and painting models (badly). The route from there to designing my own
games was pretty straightforward and, I imagine, fairly typical.
It began
with modifying published games and progressed to designing my own. I am
sceptical that, within the constraints of a two-player board wargame, it is
possible to design anything approaching a realistic simulation of a given
conflict. I don't think that there is any necessary correlation between
complexity and accuracy. The best that can be hoped for is an entertaining game
which highlights the principal choices available to the historical commanders
and provides a plausible representation of the range of outcomes which might
flow from each. Hence my games generally tend to be towards the lighter/simpler
end of the wargames spectrum and are playable at a single sitting (OK, maybe
two).
I find
the focus of wargames upon certain geographical areas and eras - broadly the
"West" and adjacent territories from 1800 to 1945 - to be surprising.
Many parts of the globe with rich martial traditions, a love of games, and a
burgeoning middle class with disposal income are neglected. A game I designed
about the Second Anglo-Sikh War prompted quite a number of contacts from gamers
in India who had no idea that our hobby even existed. Buoyed by this, I have
started discussions with publishers in India and China to see if there is any
prospect of their marketing games about historical conflicts in those
countries.
Turning
to your specific questions:
The first
design I remember completing was about the Battle of Sedgemoor (1685)
for a history project at school. I must have been about 14 or 15 at the time
and it won a prize. Not for the best project; but, for the most fun/innovative
approach to learning history!
Q2 The topic was chosen by the history
teacher. I went to school in Bridgwater and the Monmouth Rebellion is probably
the most famous event which happened in the locality.
A second
thing I find surprising about the hobby is how few grognards seem to design
their own games. My friends and I often select a conflict which seems
interesting and design a simple game, using readily available items. So, we
might modify an existing set of rules about a similar conflict, use a book
about the subject (sometimes Wikipedia), as a basis for a map and/or OsOB, and
purloin counters from existing games. Typically, the design will take a weekend
(with perhaps a few extra evenings) to put together, so that the game is ready
to play the following weekend.
-----
Sreven
Cunliffe
Q1 The Hell of Stalingrad (was
the first game I designed that reached publication, marking the beginning of
what would become a lifelong journey in historical and military game design.
The project was born during my final semester of college as I completed my
degree in World War II history. For my senior research paper, I chose the
Battle of Stalingrad—a campaign whose scale, brutality, and human tragedy had
fascinated me for years. As I immersed myself in firsthand accounts, diaries,
and historical analyses, I discovered a battle that was far removed from the
orderly representations I had seen on most gaming tables.
I spent nearly a year refining and reworking The Hell of Stalingrad, determined to capture not just the historical events of the battle, but its relentless energy and intensity. Rather than attempting to simulate the entire Stalingrad campaign, I deliberately narrowed the game's focus to the brutal urban struggle for the city itself, ending the scenario before the launch of Operation Uranus. By that point, the strategic outcome of the campaign had effectively been decided; the drama I wanted to explore was the desperate period when the German Sixth Army was still driving toward the Volga through the shattered city center and victory remained uncertain for both sides. I continued to iterate on the design until each faction possessed a distinct personality that reflected its historical doctrine, strengths, and limitations. The Germans emphasized aggressive momentum and tactical superiority, while the Soviets relied on stubborn defense, attrition, and the ability to absorb and counter relentless assaults. My goal was to create a game in which both sides felt authentic to history while remaining competitively balanced, giving each player a genuine opportunity to achieve victory despite the vastly different challenges they faced.
Q2 Short Answer: I was unsatisfied with the way Stalingrad is typically depicted in wargames.
Longer
Answer: Traditional Stalingrad wargames typically presented the conflict from a
detached, omniscient perspective. Players looked down from a bird's-eye view,
maneuvering neatly stacked counters across hexagonal terrain with perfect
knowledge of the battlefield. While these games often excelled at operational
simulation, I felt they failed to capture what made Stalingrad unique. The
historical accounts described something far more terrifying: a sprawling urban
battlefield where soldiers fought block by block, room by room, often without
knowing what lay beyond the next pile of rubble. It was a battle defined by
confusion, uncertainty, and relentless violence rather than perfect information
and orderly maneuver.
I wanted to
create a game that conveyed the emotional and psychological experience of
Stalingrad as much as its military history. Rather than asking players to
simply move units across a map, The Hell of Stalingrad sought to immerse them
in the desperate, asymmetric struggle that unfolded amid shattered factories,
collapsed apartment blocks, and burning streets. Every decision was intended to
evoke the uncertainty of urban combat, where isolated pockets of resistance
could halt an offensive, hidden defenders could emerge without warning, and
success often came at an appalling cost.
The game's
mechanics were designed to recreate the visceral feel of the battle rather than
simply model its geography. Chaos became an integral part of the experience.
The ebb and flow of combat reflected the brutal, close-quarters nature of the
fighting, where momentum could shift in moments and neither side could ever
truly feel secure. Instead of treating Stalingrad as a giant tactical puzzle,
the design emphasized tension, attrition, and the constant pressure of fighting
in one of history's most lethal urban battlefields.
Looking
back, The Hell of Stalingrad established many of the design principles that
continue to shape my work today. More than recreating historical events, I
strive to recreate the decisions, uncertainty, and emotional experience of
those who lived them. History is more than maps and movement—it is about human
conflict under extraordinary circumstances. My first published game was an
attempt to bring players closer to that reality, transforming one of history's
greatest battles from a collection of counters on a hex map into an experience
that felt dangerous, chaotic, and intensely personal.
-----
Ted
Raicer
Q1 The game that became When Eagles Fight (XTR Corp., 1993) – I was calling it Armies of the Tsar – on the east
front in WWI. I designed it in 1990 and originally brought to Avalon Hill where
I was informed (without their looking at it) that "WWI doesn't sell."
I thought to myself "Bad WWI designs don't sell" and eventually it
was published in Command Magazine where it won me my first Charles S. Roberts
awards.
Q2 I always had an interest in WWI but
also in the WWII East Front and I thought "We need a game on the OTHER
East Front" – the WWI version. At the time doing research, especially on
the OoB was not easy and I spent many hours in the New York Public Library
nailing it down but the design itself came together fairly easily, though it
was changed somewhat in the Command version.
-----
Ted
Torgerson
Q1 I would say my games do not
necessarily fit in the category of wargames. They are more Euro-wargame
hybrids, adapting some wargame systems to social conflicts. The first wargame
that I designed that I felt was a complete finished wargame was Sharks and Jets (Web published, 2006). This was just a variant of Advanced Squad
Leader Starter Kit #1 applied to the musical West Side Story. I did make a few
substantive rule changes that I think improved the Starter Kit system, but not
enough to really distinguish Sharks and Jets as its own design.
Q2 You know I always have been a big fan of Shakespeare and of West Side Story. Jerry Robbins was the director until they replaced him because the shoot was taking too long, but his choreography is really excellent. And of course, the Bernstein/Sondheim score is so great. I was playing a lot of ASL solitaire at that time and thought I could get my wife to try ASL if I re-themed the game. It didn’t work.
-----
Terry
Simo
Q1 Elusive Victory (GMT Games,
2009).
Q2 My main inspiration for most if not all my game designs is a well written book on the topic - for Elusive Victory it was the book of same name by Dupuy - which then leads to buying more books on the subject matter. I have a military library in the house that probably rivals or exceeds that of some of the local libraries. History can come alive from those well-written and researched books.
-----
Thomas
Van Hare
Q1 Late 1970s: INITIAL EXPERIENCE
I got my
start in wargames by designing scenarios back in the late 1970s. At that time,
most of my focus was on developing solitaire rules for the popular AH and SPI
titles that were most of what we had in the marketplace.
Early 1980s:
FIRST PROFESSIONAL WARGAMING
In the early
1980s, I had my first experience in professional military education (PME)
wargaming when the university I attended (Michigan State University) was
awarded a contract for US Army Ranger officer training using wargaming to teach
command and communications through the medium of NATO-Warsaw Pact engagements.
Essentially, we created a huge gaming table with rolling European terrain,
measuring about 3 meters by 7 meters, and populated the forces with miniatures
at a very small scale (a tank was about the size of a small fingernail. The
rules were developed and then rounds of US Army Ranger officers would come for
a three-week course, during which they would gather to play the wargame and
attend classes and briefings, with written papers due between the weekend
wargaming sessions, essentially as formal After-Action Reports (AARS) with
lessons learned. Our small group at the university performed the OPFOR function
in the game and all of the Ranger officers were on the same team across the
table, so to speak.
In the first
week's wargame, our group took on the role of the Soviets and we performed a
massive scale armored assault against dug-in NATO forces that were controlled
by the Ranger officers. Their focus was to apply NATO tactics, shoot &
scoot, etc., with the goal of slowing and ultimately halting our advance. From
the start, however, their defenses went awry as we began with an intensive
artillery bombardment in classic Soviet style. Generally disoriented, they
performed poorly afterward and we would overwhelm and destroy the Ranger
officer team's plans, often just based on the sheer weight of our numbers.
During the
week that followed, the Ranger officers attended classes on Soviet tactics and
each wrote a paper. Typically, they bemoaned the challenges and drew the
conclusion that Europe was nearly indefensible. Remember, this was in the early
1980s, when the Cold War was reaching its darkest point. Even when applying
NATO tactical and operational methods, they found they could not stop the
Soviet advance. Mostly, they advised about the need to procure newer and more
advanced weapons systems that could better address the rapidly evolving and
expanding Soviet threat.
In the
second week's wargame, they were surprised to find that the wargame was to a
replay of the same scenario but with us switching sides. Our team played NATO
while the Ranger officers played the Soviets. That game gave them the
opportunity to apply the Soviet tactics and operational methods they had
learned in the classroom sessions during the week. The Ranger officers entered
the wargame with extreme confidence but were surprised when they saw how we
employed NATO tactics and operational methods in slightly different, more
effective ways. While each decision seemed minor, the culmination of many good
choices and carefully planned fallback in order proved impossible for them to
defeat. The results were both stunning and predictable. Instead of overwhelming
the NATO positions, they found themselves staring at failed attacks and columns
of burning T-72 tanks and AFVs. Even their use of artillery hadn't been as
effective as it should have been.
Once again,
the week that followed was one of classes and another paper. This time they
hesitated to declare that the Soviets could not possibly win and that NATO was
simply superior. Generally, they couched their answers with more caution and
took more time to document what they had learned from our approaches to
applying existing NATO tactics and operational methods with the existing
equipment at hand.
In the third
week's wargame, they expected that we would reverse roles again and were
greatly encouraged when they were handed a revise order of battle that featured
greatly expanded capabilities. What followed, however, was a meeting engagement
rather than a NATO-style defense-in-depth. In that final game of the series,
they were astonished to see how the Soviets used massed helicopter assault
forces to penetrate behind the lines and block their lines of retreat,
reinforcement, and movement. With their reserves tied up, they found themselves
facing localized, highly concentrate armored thrusts at key points along the
FEBA (what we nowadays call the Zero Line). Usually, they reacted well, which
demonstrated just how much they had learned in two classroom weeks with three
wargames mixed in. Generally speaking, it was a good training program and I
still look back on it and the group effort we put in to design to US Military
standards for formal PME use. It was a really good learning process. Sadly,
I've lost my copies of the rules, but remember, that's almost 45 years ago
anyway, so I expect they would be vastly out of date!
Mid-1990s:
MY FIRST "REAL" WARGAME DESIGN
My very
first wargame design that one might call entirely my own was actually only
partially so. It was derivative of an older game, upon which I layered an
experimental game mechanic that I developed based on a reference I found while
doing some historical research. The game mechanic was not well-documented, as
is the case with many such old games -- this one was over 1,000 years old!
Ultimately, I found the core idea so compelling that I recreated the mechanic
in modern form, based on the limited descriptions that I uncovered. The
resulting game was called Berserk! and it offers a new way to wargame
out Viking age and Medieval combat. It is played out on a square grid. Although
I published a few copies of it years ago, and even if it proved very popular
among those who played it, I only made it available to a few close friends and
have never commercialized it. It warrants that, so one day I intend to revise
and improve the rules and publish it for the wider community. Despite that, I
still count it as the best design I've ever created -- writing this now reminds
me that I should really reopen that project (perhaps next year).
2020s:
LAUNCHING A WARGAME PUBLISHING COMPANY
Coinciding
with the close out of some operational work I was doing in Afghanistan and
Pakistan, I returned to wargame design through my old publication, Historic
Wings, which, as an aviation history publication (mostly online, though with a
YouTube channel too) is coming up on its 30th anniversary next year. I employed
that company and its existing brand identity as the vehicle for launching a
line of historically-centered, deeply-researched aviation wargames. The first
of wargame published was called Tally-Ho!, which is a quick-to-the table,
highly replayable, solitaire game about the Battle of Britain. This was my
first direct to public, published commercial wargame design. Interestingly,
though it is four years old, it still sells well and continuously gets good
reviews. Last year, it made two "top-100 wargames lists", for
instance.
I've
published a total of eight (8) games so far in that series. The full list is as
follows: Tally-Ho! (Historic Wings, 2022), MAG-23 Guadalcanal (Historic
Wings, 2023), SOE: Lysander (HW, 2023), Overflight! (HW, 2024), Game of Drones (HW, 2024), The Battle of Palmdale (HW, 2025), Black Flight (HW, 2025), and Speed Kings (HW, 2026). In the next few
months, a number of games that have been in development for the past two years
will finally be published, including Achtung Jabo!, Spitfire Squadron,
Invictus, and La Fiere.
Q2 The
reason I focused on aviation wargaming topics for my first commercial design
released under the Historic Wings brand is that I'm a pilot with extensive
operational experience, including in conflict operations, on a global basis. As
well, I'm an aviation history author with something like 450 articles that I've
written over the years. They say you should write what you know, so I do
exactly that.
Most people say that my background in aviation comes through in the realistic and accurate rules sets that I create. I believe that is important because it allows me to bring an understanding of the real world challenges of aviation operations in war and conflict. One advantage that I can offers is the ability to abstract the action down to the "right level" for playability while not sacrificing the historic "look and feel" that players want so badly nowadays.
Again, thank you for inviting my participating in this year's survey. It has been an honor to be asked. I've provided long answers -- use what you like, discard the rest. I hope that this has helped you understand the twisting and convoluted path that many of us have taken over the years when starting to create and publish wargames.
-----
Tristan
Hall
Q1 The first historical game I designed
that genuinely felt "done" was 1066, Tears to Many Mothers
(Hall or Nothing Productions, 2014). It was the first time I felt I'd taken a
historical event and shaped it into a complete game that captured not just the
facts, but the feeling I wanted players to experience.
Q2 I'd always been fascinated by the story of King Harold. Here's a man who marched north, defeated the Vikings once and for all at Stamford Bridge, and then immediately had to race south to face William. I've often wondered what kind of king he might have become had history given him the chance. Instead, he was denied that opportunity by William's invasion, and England's future changed forever. That sense of tragedy and "what if?" really captured my imagination.
I wanted to
create a game that explored the struggle for the English throne rather than
simply recreate the Battle of Hastings. I was also inspired by the words of the
medieval chronicler Eilmer of Malmesbury, writing about Halley's Comet:
"You've
come, have you? You've come, you source of tears to many mothers. It is long
since I saw you; but as I see you now, you are much more terrible, for I see
you brandishing the downfall of my country."
That quote
perfectly captured the sense of foreboding and human cost surrounding the
events of 1066, and it inspired the title, 1066, Tears to Many Mothers.
-----
Ty Bomba
Q1 My first design, done when I was a
16-year-old high school junior in 1969, was an add-on map scenario variant for
Avalon Hill Stalingrad (Avalon Hill, 1963), titled Operation Platinum
Fox. It contained an 11x8.5” black-and-white photocopied hex map that added
the rest of Finland and the Kola Peninsula to the northern edge of the parent
game's map. There was also a sheet containing a few added PnP units and new
victory conditions. I sold it by mail for $1.50 under the corporate name
“Blutbad Enterprises.” I believe I sold about a dozen of them.
Q2 It is impossible for those who did
not live and wargame during the mid- and late-1960s to understand the
hold Stalingrad had on us, despite its many flaws and omissions in
regard to its historicity. I was immersed in it. I had to get Platinum Fox out
of the way before I could concentrate on any other project.
https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/4651/stalingrad
-----
Volko
Ruhnke
Q1 Wilderness War (GMT Games,
2001) (which did get published). Before that, I had designed rules variants,
scenarios, GMed campaigns, and the like. But my first whole and finished board
wargame design was that one.
Q2 I had done a lot of research for a GMed paper campaign among my friends in that setting. I was drawn to the setting for a number of reasons - asymmetry, local relevance, personal taste - and did not feel any other boardgame captured all the aspects that I wanted. I had a good model to modify to my setting, a published game by a noted designer (Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage (Avalon Hill, 1996)), that seemed to fit well. A friend encouraged me to take the plunge into full-scale boardgame design.
-----
Walter
Vejdovsky
Q1 It was Moscou 1941, published
in the French magazine Vae Victis (1995).
Q2 Eastern Front WW2 is my favourite campaign together with Napoleonic. I was particularly interested in the November 1941 turning point around Moscow (and one of my top ten games was Operation Typhoon from SPI (1978)). I wanted to make a lighter version of this game while keeping the same spirit and tension.
-----
Wes
Crawford
This is
difficult to answer because I was making wargames as early as 5th grade. Most
of my early games were based on Avalon Hill or SPI designs and I believe my
first one was Sicily in WW2, with the mechanics based on D-Day by AH. It
was fun to play, but didn't really break any new ground. Whenever a new S&T
magazine showed up or I bought a new Ballentine book, I often at least started
working on a game from an S&T article or the book. Those would often be my
only sources! My crowning achievement, however, and one I felt was
"done," was a game I created over the course of a year working on it
almost every day when I was 16 (about 1973-1974). I don't remember if I came up
with a catchy name, but it encompassed the entire ETO in WW2. The mapboard consisted
of six full-sized poster boards and took up almost all of the family's ping
pong table. I hand-drew individual hexes over all land masses. Units were
armies. Counters were large to fit the map and the armies took step reduction
by sliding a paper clip across the top. I researched hard to make accurate
reinforcement and production schedules (by then I was a member of the Military
Book Club) and I remember the game had "What If?" event cards. I do
remember there were no other ETO games on the market that I knew about and I
actually played this 6-hour game several times with friends and we had fun and
became quite engaged. Alas, sometime years later, my father tested some
scissors and accidentally destroyed the game and threw out the pieces while I was
out on tour with a band.
My first two professional games I designed that I felt
"were done" were Terror Cell-Washington, DC (currently
not signed, but previously was and we went our separate ways) and "Yankee
Scare Party"- The Confederate Raid on St. Albans, VT (currently
handed in to Compass Games and waiting for an artist).
Q2 As a teenager and even before I was
fascinated with WW2 and read all I could about it. Currently, I'm much more
interested in a good story of conflict. This is why my first two published
designs are Engine Thieves (Compass Game, 2025) (about The Great
Locomotive Chase) and The Pursuit of John Wilkes Booth (Blue Panther,
2025), co-designed with Ryan Heilman. Both are fascinating stories. With Terror
Cell-Washington, DC I was highly influenced by watching the BBC series
"MI5" several times. The storyline is brilliant, reminiscent of
"24" in the US, but more cerebral, in my opinion. When I was browsing
in Politics and Prose, an independent bookstore in DC, I opened a coffee table
book on the ACW and it randomly flipped to a page on the St. Albans Raid. As I
investigated this story, I became more engrossed in the topic and even had a
two-day tour of St. Albans with Raid author, Michelle Sherburne. I'm happy with
this game because I was able to incorporate the full story comprising the raid,
the escape to Canada, the trials, and the covert mission to bring back
documents from Jefferson Davis.
-----
William
Marsh
Q1 Bunker Hill: A Dear Bought Victory (XTR Corp. 1995)
Prior to
this, I had done many variants, most for my personal use, including one for The Far Seas (3W, 1987) which SPI published in Moves #75.
One could
argue that Bunker Hill was actually a "variant" of sorts, as it used
the Hougoumont (XTR Corp., 1991) game system, and did not require
designing a system from scratch.
My End of Empire (XTR Corp. 1997) game was entirely a new game system designed to
reflect what I considered the important military factors of the FIW and ARW and
is the only time I did that.
Q2 My historical interest in the FIW and American Revolution has been lifelong, inspired by visits to the still standing blockhouse of Fort Pitt as a child.
Bunker Hill
came about because Ty Bomba asked for design proposals for Bunker Hill in the
feedback for Command Magazine. I submitted one on a whim, knowing I had the
historical information to create an accurate simulation with an existing game
system, and my proposal was voted positively by the readership.
End of
Empire came about because after Bunker Hill was well received, Ty wanted a
mini-monster game on the ARW, and negotiated with me to do that. I wanted to
make a FIW game based on my historical interest. Building the system to
simulate the FIW was straightforward. I had the historical data to do the ARW
as a "variant" to that system, which created the game Ty wanted to
publish.
Life got
busy, and I really didn't game much for years, but my retirement coincided with
Compass Games wanting to republish End of Empire (Compass Games, 2014),
fixing the issues that happened when Ty published the game with 1/2 inch
counters (there was too much data on them -- the original playtest version had
larger counters) and I agreed to participate provided I could add the 1744 war
as a scenario.
-----
Wray
Ferrell
Q1 My first wargame design was my first
published game Sword of Rome (GMT Games, 2004).
Q2 Basically, I was playing Hannibal: Rome vs Carthage (Avalon Hill, 1996) every day at lunch and with the naivety of a first-time designer decided to design a multi-player version of Hannibal.
Pretty sure
if I had known how time-consuming designing Sword of Rome was going to be, not
sure I would have started. But that is why you have a sense of accomplishment
when it is done.
-----
Yasushi
Nakaguro
Q1 Strictly
speaking, the first wargame I ever designed was a two-player game called Terrible
Tarawa. I must have been around 16. I had already spent four years of my
youth immersed in wargaming, but up until then, I hadn't had the chance to
learn about the island battles of the Pacific War. That’s when I read the
Japanese translation of Henry I. Shaw’s Tarawa, and knew I wanted to turn it
into a game. For the mechanics, I lifted them straight from Beda Fomm
(GDW, 1979), a game I was obsessed with at the time. I figured that even if it
was a hopeless battle for the Japanese forces, I could simulate the overall
engagement by introducing morale as a variable.
That said, I
wouldn't call it a 'done' or complete game. It merely scratched the surface of
what happened there, and it probably didn't function well as a competitive
game. I made the map and counters, and even wrote the rules, but it was far
from playable.
After that,
I went on to design a few more games, some of which were eventually published
in a wargaming magazine in Japan at the time. For example, Struggle of Japanese Missions to Tang China (Kokusai-Tsushin Co., Ltd, 1986), and 73 North (Kokusai-Tsushin Co., Ltd, 1986).
Even so, I
couldn't bring myself to call them 'done.' That's because the games I mentioned
earlier were essentially solitaire games.
The first
game that truly deserved to be called 'done' was Blitzkrieg to Moscow
(Kokusai-Tsushin Co., Ltd, 1988), which was my very first commercially
published title.
At the time,
the wargaming market in Japan was beginning to contract. The games being
released were almost exclusively 'monster games'—such as the Japanese editions
of War in Europe (SPI, 1976) and War in the Pacific (SPI,
1978)—and publishers kept pushing products that completely ignored beginners.
The publisher I worked for, Show Planning, which put out a wargaming magazine,
was also facing an uncertain future. Realizing we couldn't go on like this, we
planned the 'SS (Small Simulation) Series' with the explicit goal of attracting
new players. (Looking back, I still wonder why no one questioned using the
initials 'SS'.)
This series
came with strict constraints:
- The theme
had to be major (battles found in world history textbooks).
- The
rulebook had to be 8 pages or fewer.
- The
counter count was capped at 140.
- The map
had to be B3 size or smaller.
- Playtime
had to be under 120 minutes (preferably under 60).
In terms of
distribution and pricing, several measures were taken: the price was set at
1,500 yen (about 11.7 USD at the exchange rate back then) so that junior high
school students could easily afford it, and the games were made available in
mainstream bookstores. It also served as a gateway for aspiring designers, and
we solicited game designs not just from our staff but from the general public
as well.
Initially, I
submitted a game on the North African campaign using a chit-driven system. I
chose a chit-driven mechanic because it makes solitaire play easier, which in
turn made the game easier to design. However, when it came to actual
playtesting against an opponent, it just wasn't fun. Supply lines had too much
leverage, and the balance between the mechanics, theme, and scale was
completely off.
Around that
time, our president, Ginichiro Suzuki, was trying to design a game on Operation
Barbarossa using a traditional system, but he was stuck. That’s when he
approached me and suggested, 'Why don’t we swap themes?' The president then
decided to use the chit-driven system to simulate only Operation Crusader
rather than the entire North African campaign. That became Rommel's Afrika
Korps (Game Journal, 1988), which was completed and published as the very
first title in the SS Series.
To be
honest, I didn't have much interest in the Eastern Front of World War II at the
time. However, swapping themes forced me to hit the books, and I soon found
myself thoroughly fascinated by it. Given the component constraints, I decided
to cover everything from Operation Barbarossa and the Red Army's winter
counteroffensive to the subsequent German counterattack that struck the
overextended Soviet forces. I designed a game system that presented Axis
players with a classic dilemma: whether to prioritize time or space.
While I
didn't use a chit-driven system, I opted for a 'dice bucket' combat resolution
system with a slight twist to keep it beginner-friendly.
So, what
made me feel it was truly 'done'? For one, players experienced the exact
dilemma I had intended as a designer. This aspect worked beautifully from the
very first playtest. Above all, receiving so much positive feedback after its
release made me truly realize that a great number of people were genuinely
enjoying the game.
Q2 I believe I’ve already answered this
question, but ultimately, the most important thing is whether or not it
captures my own interest.
-----
Yves
Rettel
Q1 I started wargaming when I was eight
or nine years old. At the time, the only wargame I owned was SPI’s Panzergruppe Guderian from 1976.
Over the
next ten years, I drew my own maps and made counters for several Second World
War battles, since that was the only period of military history that interested
me back then. I particularly remember the games I designed on Normandy and the
Ardennes. As far as I can recall, they all used more or less the same rules as
Panzergruppe Guderian.
Did they ever feel “done”? I suppose they did. I played them endlessly, using my hand-drawn maps and paper counters cut out with scissors, until I discovered—at around the age of eighteen—that other wargames actually existed.
Q2 I was born and raised in Luxembourg,
not far from the Battle of the Bulge battlefields, so the history of the Second
World War was always very present in my surroundings. We spent all our summer
holidays just a few hundred metres from a railway bridge that had played a role
in the Rundstedt Offensive, as my parents always called it. Even as a child, I
was aware that the landscape around me was connected to events that had
affected my family and the entire country.
My parents
and their siblings had lived through the Nazi occupation. They had been
evacuated in the aftermath of the German invasion of 10 May 1940 and later
returned home to a country under occupation. Their memories, stories and
opinions naturally became part of our family conversations. The war was not
something distant or abstract to us. It was recent family history.
The Second
World War, the occupation and the “Prussians,” as Germans were often called in
my family, were discussed quite frequently. These conversations were not always
calm or detached historical debates. They were shaped by personal memories,
resentment, fear and the experience of having lived through those years. That
gave the subject an emotional dimension long before I began to study it as
history.
My eldest
brother was also a keen history enthusiast, and his fascination with the
subject rubbed off on me from a very early age. Through him, I became
interested not only in the stories of the war, but also in the military events
themselves: the armies, the battles, the movement of units and the decisions
made by commanders.
Designing
games about Normandy, the Ardennes and other Second World War battles therefore
felt completely natural to me. These were the subjects I knew best and the ones
that captured my imagination. In the case of the Ardennes in particular, I was
creating a game about events that had taken place almost on my doorstep. It was
a way of exploring the history I had grown up with and of trying to understand,
through maps and counters, how those events had unfolded.
-----
Yves Roig
Q1 My first historical game design was Keep'em
Rolling: 1944 – Race to the Rhine (Phalanx, 2023), which was later
published by Phalanx.
I originally
started designing it within my local gaming club. The initial goal was simply
to create a game that would allow a fourth player to join our regular sessions,
while also offering a solo experience. I chose the Brittany campaign of 1944 as
the setting, and gradually developed the design until it felt complete.
Q2 There were several reasons why I chose this subject.
First of
all, I come from Provence, in southern France. For me, it was an opportunity to
shine a light on Operation Anvil–Dragoon, a campaign that is too often
overshadowed by the Normandy landings, despite its enormous strategic
importance. The liberation of the southern ports, particularly Marseille and
Toulon, provided the Allies with the logistical lifeline that later sustained
General Patton's advance across France. I felt this operation deserved far more
recognition than it usually receives.
From a game
design perspective, I have always been fascinated by logistics as the true
engine of military operations. One of the games that had a strong influence on
me was 1944: Race to the Rhine (Phalanx, 2014). I admired how it approached warfare through supply
and movement rather than simply through combat. It demonstrated that logistics
could be both historically meaningful and genuinely fun.
That
philosophy has shaped all of my designs ever since. My ambition has always been
to create historical games that can be played in around two hours, remain easy
to learn, and still capture the essence of the campaign they depict. I want
players to experience a strong historical theme through modern board game
mechanisms rather than traditional, highly detailed simulations.
This design
philosophy has remained consistent throughout my later games, including Gettysburg: A Time for Heroes (Worthington Publishing, 2024),
Brandywine, 1777: A Time for Heroes (Les 3 Zouaves, 2026), and, [as publisher,] Austerlitz, 1805: Coup deTonnerre! (Les 3 Zouaves, 2026). My goal has never been to make games
exclusively for experienced wargamers, but to create historical board games
that are accessible to a much wider audience without sacrificing historical
authenticity.
-----
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