External links
- HMS history of HMS and GR/D
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Game Research/Design (GR/D) was a board wargame publisher, principally concerned with the Europa series of European World War II wargames. GR/D was formed in 1985 by John Astell, one of the Europa designers, and Winston Hamilton, another World War II wargame designer. The company published several Europa expansions, as well as a magazine dedicated to the series, and in 1989 GR/D acquired the rights to the series. They published collectors' editions of the Europa games, as well as beginning two more series focusing on the Pacific War and World War I.
The Europa Winter War Game was designed by Gary Stagliano, friend of John Astell. He was partly Finnish and grew up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. He was an avid gamer and highly interested in military history.
In 2001, GR/D was purchased by Mill Creek Ventures (principal owner Carl Kleihege).
In 2004, Mill Creek sold GR/D to Historical Military Services.
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A wargame is a type of strategy game that simulates warfare realistically, as opposed to abstract strategy games such as chess. Wargames may be miniature figurines on a tabletop, board games or video games. They typically use a map that depicts various battlefield terrain features such as woods, hills, fields and streams, with a grid or location system superimposed over this to regulate the movement and positions of the games' pieces, each of which represents a specific military formation, such as an infantry brigade or artillery battery. Many wargames recreate specific historic battles, and can cover either whole wars, or any campaigns, battles, or lower-level engagements within them. Many simulate land combat, but there are wargames for naval and air combat as well.
James F. Dunnigan is an author, military-political analyst, Defense and State Department consultant, and wargame designer currently living in New York City.
Miniature wargaming is a form of wargaming in which players enact battles between opposing military forces that are represented by miniature physical models. The use of physical models to represent military units is in contrast to other tabletop wargames that use abstract pieces such as counters or blocks, or computer wargames which use virtual models. The primary benefit of using models is aesthetics, though in certain wargames the size and shape of the models can have practical consequences on how the match plays out.
Europa is a series of board wargames planned to cover combat over the entire European Theater of World War II at a scale that represents units from divisions down to battalions and game turns that represent two weeks of time. The series was launched in 1973, and is still in production as of 2013, with over a dozen titles published and several more still in production or planning. Most of the titles qualify as "monster games", a subgenre of wargames featuring extensive orders of battle, a complex ruleset and usually a large game-map area with a detailed representation of the terrain they cover.
The Charles S. Roberts Awards was an annual award for excellence in the historical wargaming hobby. It was named in honor of Charles S. Roberts the "Father of Wargaming" who founded Avalon Hill. The award was informally called a "Charlie" and officially called a "Charles S. Roberts Award". The Wargamer magazine called it "very prestigious".
Marc William Miller is a wargame and role-playing game designer and author.
Frank Chadwick is an American multiple-award-winning game designer and New York Times Best Selling author. He has designed hundreds of games, his most notable being the RPGs Traveller, Space: 1889 and Twilight 2000, and the wargame series Europa and The Third World War.
Douglas Niles is a fantasy author and game designer. Niles was one of the creators of the Dragonlance world and the author of the first three Forgotten Realms novels, and the Top Secret S/I espionage role-playing game.
Mark H. Walker is a writer and board wargame designer. He has written articles about information technology and computer and video games for publications including AutoWeek, PC Gamer, Computer Gaming World, Armchair General, and Playboy and websites such as GameSpy and Science Fiction Weekly.
Computer Bismarck is a computer wargame developed and published by Strategic Simulations, Inc. (SSI) in 1980. The game is based on the last battle of the battleship Bismarck, in which British Armed Forces pursue the German Bismarck in 1941. It is SSI's first game, and features turn-based gameplay and two-dimensional graphics.
John Evans Hill was an American designer of military wargames, as well as rules for miniature wargaming such as Johnny Reb 3. He was a member of the Wargaming Hall of Fame. Hill is most well known as the designer of the extremely popular Avalon Hill board game Squad Leader in 1977.
A grand strategy wargame is a wargame that places focus on grand strategy: military strategy at the level of movement and use of an entire nation state or empire's resources.
A board wargame is a wargame with a set playing surface or board, as opposed to being played on a computer or in a more free-form playing area as in miniatures games. The modern, commercial wargaming hobby developed in the late 1954 following the publication and commercial success of Tactics. The board wargaming hobby continues to enjoy a sizeable following, with a number of game publishers and gaming conventions dedicated to the hobby both in the English-speaking world and further afield.
Albert A. Nofi, is an American military historian, defense analyst, and designer of board and computer wargaming systems.
Paddy Griffith was a British military theorist and historian, who authored numerous books in the field of War Studies. He was also a wargame designer for the UK Ministry of Defence, and a leading figure in the wargaming community.
Paul Richard "Rich" Banner is an American game designer and graphic artist.
Lewis Errol (Lew) Pulsipher is a teacher, game designer, and author, whose subject is role playing games, board games, card games, and video games. He was the first person in the North Carolina community college system to teach game design classes, in fall 2004. He has designed half a dozen published boardgames, written more than 150 articles about games, contributed to several books about games, and presented at game conventions and conferences.
Robert Markham is a prolific American wargame designer. His game Raid on St. Nazaire won the 1987 Charles S. Roberts awards for Best World War II Board Game and Best Wargame Graphics.
John Prados is a well-known and prolific author, historian, security analyst, and game designer. He specializes in history of World War II, history of the Vietnam War, and current international relations.