Manny Granillo - Founder of Hoplite Research Games has passed away

[SBMiniaturesGuy]

Manny Granillo, the author of Hoplite's games, a dear friend and wonderful man has gone to God.  He created and published an extensive line of games and supplements - Corps Command, Panzer Korps, Eagle's Prey, Line of Battle, and many others with a fierce dedication to history and the game experience.

His sudden passing has left his wife struggling with unexpected financial issues, including his funeral expenses. There's a GoFundMe page set up for his wife, all the funds will go directly to her. Please help as you can, and please forward this to others in the gaming community you think may want to help:


https://gofund.me/1c08b4ca


God Bless,
John Cunningham

[joekano]

I didn't really know Manny, but I had the pleasure of playing in a few games he hosted at the local Shield conference back in the day and he was a real gent. Sorry to hear such terrible news.

[robh]

Very sad news, Manny's Panzer Korps and the OPFOR expansion are superb game rules that really don't get the appreciation they deserve.

He always seemed to be fighting online against gamers too impatient (or too stupid) to actually play what he wrote rather than just flicking through a book and assuming that gave them the right to criticise it.

He could look at combat at different levels of engagement, isolate just the key factors that made it unique and come up with game mechanics to capture those specific factors in a game.
Something very few rule authors can do, Bob Jones and Arty Conliffe being, IMHO, probably the only others.

I hope his family get the help they need to sort things out and that somebody keeps the Hoplite series going.

[SBMiniaturesGuy]

He could look at combat at different levels of engagement, isolate just the key factors that made it unique and come up with game mechanics to capture those specific factors in a game.
Something very few rule authors can do, Bob Jones and Arty Conliffe being, IMHO, probably the only others.

I hope his family get the help they need to sort things out and that somebody keeps the Hoplite series going.

I agree -- his games rewarded historically based tactics, with no "games munchkin" rules loopholes. It was always really cool to see tactics like this actually work in a game -- like threaten infantry with Cavalry so the player forms square, and then pound the square with artillery, or shoot it up with infantry fire...then pursue them with your Cav when the square breaks!