Draft:Dean Essig

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Dean Essig (March 13, 1961 - March 24, 2024)[1] is a Wargame designer. He spent the 1980's in the US Army and was medically retired as a 1st Lieutenant after losing both thumbs in a mortar firing accident in 1991. He started The Gamers, Inc. in 1988 and has since received numerous design and graphics awards. He sold The Gamers to Multi-Man Publishing in 2001 but continued working for the firm.

In 1998 he was in a plane crash while attempting to land his vintage plane with two friends also onboard.[2]

Essig died March 2024 a few months after he was in a car accident caused by having a cancer related stroke.[3]

Personal life

Dean Essig grew up playing wargames and wanting to learn to fly planes.[4] Essig was a U.S. Army veteran.[5] Essig learned how to fly a plane in the 1990s, and bought a vintage 1949 Cessna 195, but on his first extended flight in the Cessna in February 1998, the plane crashed at Horace Williams Airport, hospitalizing him and two friends with serious injuries.[4]

Career

The Gamers was founded in 1988 by game designer and artist Dean Essig in Homer, Illinois.[6] Essig said that the company's market was the hard-core situation gamer, but after a few years The Gamers attempted to market to less-experienced players.[5] Essig also drew mapsheets for his products.[7]

Essig started the Civil War Brigade Series of games with a game focusing on the battle of Antietam.[8] After producing a series of Civil War Brigade (CWBS) games that used a common rules system and map scale, The Gamers adapted this rules system to a Napoleonic Brigade Series (NBS), the first game of the series being Austerlitz. The NBS game system was devised by Dean Essig and David Powell. Powell then created Austerlitz, which was published as a boxed set in 1993 with illustrations by Essig.[9]

Essig is the author of the game Guderian's Blitzkrieg.[10] In 1992, The Gamers published Guderian's Blitzkrieg: The Drive on Moscow, the first wargame in the "Operational Combate Series", and a finalist for two Charles S. Roberts Awards. This was followed in 1994 by Enemy at the Gates, which won a Charles S. Roberts Award for "Best World War II Board Game of 1994". For the third game of the series, Dean Essig designed Tunisia and also created the artwork for it.[11]

Hunters from the Sky was designed by Dean Essig and published in 1994 by The Gamers, as the sixth entry in their Tactical Combat System (TCS).[12] The fourth game in this series, Yom Kipper, was designed by Al Sandrick and was published in 1995 with cover art by Dean Essig.[13] Essig also designed the game Crusader.[14]

Essig also designed Enemy at the Gates (1994).[15]

The Gamers was bought by Multi-Man Publishing in 2001. Multi-Man continued to use the services of Essig as game designer until his death in 2024.[16]

References

  1. "Mr. Dean Norman Essig - View Obituary & Service Information". Mr. Dean Norman Essig Obituary.
  2. "Pilot says he won't fly again, but wife has her doubts". The News and Observer. 28 February 1998. p. 25. Retrieved 29 June 2026. Open access icon
  3. Didymus-True, Mike (26 March 2024). "Tributes pour in after death of award-winning veteran wargame designer Dean Essig -". Retrieved 29 June 2026.
  4. Nelson, Todd (1998-02-28). "Pilot says he won't fly again, but wife has her doubts". The News & Observer. Retrieved 2026-06-29 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. Neubauer, Michael C. (1993-12-14). "New fans of war-themed games have lots to like this Christmas". Chicago Tribune. Factiva trib000020011102dpbq00sfd. ProQuest 283589601. Retrieved 2026-06-29 – via Newspapers.com.
  6. Essig, Dean; Davidson, Larry (2015). "Standard Combat Series: Series Rules, ver 1.8" (PDF). Multi-Man Publishing. Retrieved 26 October 2025.
  7. Kisner, John W. (1998). "Zone of Control". The General. Vol. 32, no. 3. p. 45. Retrieved 2026-06-29 – via Internet Archive.
  8. Barnhart, Michael A. (2021). Can You Beat Churchill?: Teaching History through Simulations. Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press. p. 12. ISBN 978-1-5017-5564-4. Retrieved 2026-06-29 – via Google Books.
  9. Berg, Richard (Winter 1993). "Eye of the Beholder: Austerlitz". Berg's Review of Games. No. 12.
  10. Stora, Frank (February 1993). "Guderian's Blitzkrieg". Casus Belli (in French). No. 73. Retrieved 2026-06-29 – via Internet Archive.
  11. "Tunisia (1995)". boardgamegeek.com. Retrieved 2022-02-09.
  12. Pursell, Jimmie (June 1995). "Pyramid: Pyramid Pick: Hunters from the Sky". Pyramid (13).
  13. Pursell, Jimmie W. (December 1995). "Pyramid Pick". Pyramid. No. 16.
  14. Armstrong, Tim; Lynn, Mike; Mix, Tom (1998). "Crusader". The General. Vol. 32, no. 1. pp. 50–51. Retrieved 2026-06-29 – via Internet Archive.
  15. Lowood, Henry (2023). Replayed: Essential Writings on Software Preservation and Game Histories. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press. p. xi. ISBN 978-1-4214-4594-6. Retrieved 2026-06-29 – via Google Books.
  16. Didymus-True, Mike (26 March 2024). "Tributes pour in after death of award-winning veteran wargame designer Dean Essig". Board Game Wire. Retrieved 2025-10-22.


Category:1961 births Category:2024 deaths Category:Place of birth missing Category:United States Army officers