As we were putting the finishing touches to this issue of Wargames Illustrated we received the sad news of Bryan Ansell’s death. Bryan was a titan of the tabletop miniatures world, initially forming Asgard, then Citadel Miniatures in the 1970s. He went on to lead Games Workshop into a brave new world of soaring popularity during the 1980s and 1990s, at a time when I worked at the company, under Bryan and his wife Diane. He then went on to make his mark on the historical wargaming hobby with Wargames Foundry.

Bryan was also a friend of the magazine; Wargames Foundry distributed Wi in the early 2000s and contributed heavily to its content. Bryan himself penned three sets of rules which his old friend Duncan Macfarlane (the then Wi Editor) published in the magazine. These can all be found online via the Wargame Illustrated Vault, for those of you who would like to take a look.

I had the pleasure of interviewing Bryan back in December 2012 (see photo below), you can read what the great man had to say about the part he played in the development of our hobby by visiting wargamesillustrated.net and searching ‘Bryan Ansell’. It is hard to overstate Bryan’s influence on our hobby, and our condolences go out to his family at this sad time.