The Wargame Library Speaker Series continues with Steven Thomas, author of the incredible Balagan blog and independent game designer of countless titles. To learn more about his games, check his blog. When you started developing a fast-play WSS game back in 2001, what was missing from available game systems at the time? I actually wrote it about 1996 before I had a website. Sadly, that file no longer opened and I deleted it! Truth to tell, I knew nothing about the War of Spa

The Wargame Library Speaker Series continues with Etienne Michot, author of Unterseeboot, as well as Ducks in the Pond, D-Day Solitaire, and more. To learn more about his games, check his profile at Board Game Geek. What inspired you to enter the BGG solo design contest? We are talking 2016. A fellow designer by the name of Pete Belli was putting out his "One-Minute" wargame series at the time — One-Minute Bulge, One-Minute Waterloo, One-Minute Little Bighorn, etc. These we

The Wargame Library Speaker Series continues with Valerio of Alkedo Miniatures, author of Oi Navarcoi! To learn more about the game and follow the latest updates, visit his official page. Ancient battles are popular on the tabletop, but ancient naval is less played. Why? I see both gameplay and aesthetic reasons. Land combat requires the combined use of at least heavy and light infantry and cavalry, and possibly also specialized shooting units such as archers, etc. so it has

The Wargame Library Speaker Series continues with Brandon Fraley, author of Hail of Fire. To learn more about the game and follow the latest updates, visit Retro Boom Games. What originally inspired you to start working on Hail of Fire? It was originally an exercise to try and condense Flames of War into 3 pages. I was a big Flames of War tournament player. Not a good one by any measure, mind you, but a regular nonetheless. However I also really wanted to play the game with m

The Wargame Library Speaker Series continues with Sam Mustafa, author of Longstreet, as well as Blucher, Lasalle, Maurice, Nimitz, and many more. To learn more about all of Sam's wargames, visit Honour Games. What was the original design spark behind Longstreet, your first foray into the American Civil War? I've always been interested in the topic and I know fair amount about it, but I did a deep dive into reading lots of memoirs and training manuals and scholarly analyses,

The Wargame Library Speaker Series continues with Jay White, author of This Hallowed Ground, as well as Empires at War, Beat to Quarters, and more. Visit his blog, Jay's Wargaming Madness, to learn more. Your blog has become quite the hub for your free rules. What motivated you to start developing and publishing your own systems? As a baseline I try to avoid writing my own rules and try to focus on first creating a solid rules reference for an existing system. Early on I did

The Wargame Library Speaker Series continues with Craig Cartmell, author of FUBAR, as well as In Her Majesty's Name, Daisho, Blood Eagle, and Thud & Blunder. Visit the Ministry of Gentlemanly Warfare to learn more. What was the original design goal behind Fubar? It began as a simple set of rules for my own amusement, an exercise in minimalism. Could I create a set of rules on a single page? My original intention was to produce a set of one page rules for World War Two skirmi

The Wargame Library Speaker Series continues with Frank Sultana, author of Blood on the Sands. To learn more about the game, visit the official homepage. What did you feel was missing from existing gladiator games that you wanted to capture in blood on the sands? Having played most of the other gladiator systems out there, I often found them lacking in one key respect: the combat felt static. What should be tense, mobile, and dramatic duels too often became two fighters stand