The Armory

The Armory is the place for all things Europa official. We'll itroduce you to the three game series that make up the wider Europa universe.

Europa-Games have been published by four companies so far:

• Game Designers Workshop (GDW), 1973–1987
• Game Research/Design (GRD), 1989–2000
• Mill Creek Ventures, 2001–2003
• Historical Military Services (HMS), 2004–present

Game Designers' Workshop was originally established June 22, 1973. The founding members consisted of Frank Chadwick, Rich Banner, Marc Miller, and Loren Wiseman and a few other members of the Illinois State University Wargames Club (ca. 1972-73).

In an effort of bridging the gap existing between the milieux of role players, board wargamers and miniature wargamers, the company published RPGs with fantastic settings alongside ones with realistic or military themes, as well as rulesets about WW2, WW1, modern warfare and the American Civil War. However, GDWs main effort went into the Europa Series, of which Drang Nach Osten! was merely the first. Until 1985 eleven modules of the Europa-Series were put out forward, with John Astell, Frank Chatwick, Marc Miller and Rich Banner taking credits for the individual game designs. The last module to come out of GDWs workshops was Torch in 1985.

The company disbanded February 29, 1996. The designers attributed the company's demise as much to burn-out as to financial difficulties.

GR/D was formed in 1985 by John Astell and Winston Hamilton to give support to the growing popularity of Europa.

GR/D began publishing play aids for Europa, as well as a magazine dedicated to the series, under a license from GDW while GDW was still publishing the games. In 1989 they acquired use of the Europa trademark and began printing the games, both new titles and "Deluxe Edition" revisions of previously published titles.

In 1991 GR/D started the "Collectors Series" of Europa games under which previously out-of-print games of the series were throuroughly redesigned and republished. In new series based on the Europa system: The Glory Series and The Great War Series.

When GRD's Winston Hamilton died in March 2001, Mill Creek Ventures (principal owner Carl Kleihege) bought the rights and took over production of Europa. They continued using the terms "Game Research/Design", "GRD", and "GRD Games" alongside "Mill Creek Ventures" in their publications. They never published an actual Europa game, but they continued with the development for future releases and released several issues of The Europa Magazine.

 In mid-2004 HMS bought the assets that formerly belonged to GR/D, and thus took over production of the Europa series. HMS published Wavell's War in November 2005, which had already been prepared for shipment on the time of the takeover. HMS has released two issues of The Europa Magazine, also already edited before the takeover. Since then, Europa has been dormant, a striking similarity to the handling of ETO.

Under the terms of the agreement whereby GR/D had obtained use of the Europa trademark the intellectual property reverted to Rich Banner when Winston Hamilton died, so all Europa production by Mill Creek Ventures and Historical Military Services has been done under a license from Banner.