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Bloomington, IL. May 17, 2026 — Issue number 1 of the Europa Series Briefing is now available. See the Briefing 1 page for details. ⬣

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Bloomington, IL. May 2, 2026 — Things have been happening in the background.

1. The content of Europa Series Briefing Issue 1 is complete and is just waiting for the cover art to be finished. It is 48 pages (plus a 4-page cover overlay) with a main focus on the Eastern Front but with some Second Front material as well.

Members of Classic Europa have seen drafts of much of this material, but this has been revised, updated, and expanded. There is also brand-new content including FITE/SE optional rules for Soviet tank and mechanized corps and tank armies.

The plan is to release the issue in digital format when ready, with a print-on-demand option. we’ll let you know when it is ready.

ESW will not be taking subscriptions at this stage but plans to charge per issue. The Briefing will be published on no set schedule at first, but a major article on rocket artillery for Issue 2 is already in first draft form. It includes how to update the rocket artillery units in all the published Europa games. American rocket artillery units make their first ever appear for Second Front based on information I did not have when I did SF. OK, the US gets a maximum of just two rocket battalions before the end of the war, so it’s perhaps not quite as impressive as it sounds. However, the Soviet rocket artillery has a much improved treatment, based on Russian-language works that simply were not available when Scorched Earth was done. There’s more non-divisional Soviet rocket artillery, and the 1942 evolution of their heavy rocket artillery (all shown as 4-1-8 brigades in SE) is shown through 2-6 composite brigades, 3-2-6 regiments, and finally 5-3-6 brigades.

2. ESW’s main effort has focused on making the out-of-print Europa games available in digital format. As a first step, great progress has been made on the GDW-era Europa games plus some surprise/bonus material. There’s no release date yet, but we’re getting there.

3. Most of my time has been spent on Items 1 and 2, so I have had little time to work on Barbarossa Unleashed this year. That should soon change in upcoming few weeks, and I hope to be able to prioritize BU over other Europa efforts.

4. As you’ve probably seen here, we now have the Index of Nations, Index of Counters, and Index of Maps. These are complete guides to the nations, counter sheets, and maps in the Europa series.

5. More is on the way, and we will let you know about these developments when we can. ⬣

More news

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Bloomington, IL. April 28, 2026 — We’ve posted a guide to all the nations of the Europa series with information about maps, counters, colors, etc.

It can be accessed here: Index of Nations.  ⬣

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Bloomington, IL. April 26, 2026 — We’ve posted a complete guide to all the counter sheets of the Europa series with full information about game, number of counters, nationalities, etc.

It can be accessed here: Index of Counters.  ⬣

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Bloomington, IL. April 12, 2026 — We’ve posted a complete guide to all the maps of the Europa series with full information about size, game, year published, territory covered, etc.

It can be accessed here: Index of Maps.  ⬣

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Bloomington, IL. March 2, 2026 — We are pleased to announce the non-profit Europa Series Wargames Foundation has been formally incorporated under the laws of the state of Illinois as authorized by Rich Banner. The Foundation has been created to oversee Europa’s intellectual property through licensing and Fair Use policies in order to preserve, protect, and promote the Europa Series of historical wargames as both rigorous military simulations and deeply enjoyable recreational games for students and enthusiasts of military history. The Europa Series Wargames Foundation holds this body of work in trust for the gaming public and for future generations, with a commitment to stewardship rather than exploitation. The founding directors of the Foundation are Marc Miller, John Astell, and Bill Stone. The Foundation has approved Europa Series Wargames as the first licensee for reprinting and updating existing Europa games, as well as publishing new Europa games and modules. Businesses and individuals interested in Europa licensing and/or Fair Use considerations are invited to contact the Foundation. It can be reached at TheEuropaSeries@gmail.com  ⬣

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Bloomington, IL. February 16, 2026 — John Astell has completed compilation of all current errata sheets for Europa games from Drang Nach Osten! onward, and he’s added a few extras as well.

They can be accessed here: Errata & Extras.  ⬣

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Bloomington, IL. February 12, 2026 — In addition to our other tasks (such as digitizing Europa) our goal for Europa is to expand the series into covering the whole war from 1939-1945 using as much as practical the maps and counters from the existing Europa games. The intention is NOT to revise and redo Europa from the ground up. Not only would that be a tremendous amount of work likely resulting only in minor improvements, the project would likely never get finished.

Many hundreds of hours have gone into rating the Europa units and creating the maps, and there is no compelling reason to throw them out. Sure, there are minor revisions and improvements that could be made, but the existing components are fine, especially all the maps and counters done by GRD in Winston Hamilton’s time. The one major exception here is the USSR: the Soviet OB and maps of the USSR need to be revised, given all the information that has come out about the USSR since the fall of the Soviets. Even here, the goal is to get the maps and counters up to Second Front/First to Fight quality rather than introduce any major new scheme. The one minor exception is the map of the British Isles. This goes back to GDW days and does need updating. For one example, parts of southern Britain should have hedgerow terrain, like parts of northern France have bocage terrain. Sufficient information on this terrain simply wasn’t available during work on the 2nd edition Their Finest Hour.

Accordingly, there are no plans to revise things like the basic color schemes of almost all countries, as that would entail throwing out hundreds or thousands of perfectly good counters.

So, what does need to be done to realize the Europa plan?

Primary Goals

1. Soviet OB and maps for 1941-45.
   
   
2. Barbarossa Unleashed CORE rules set, with an eye for a generalized Europa CORE rules set that can be utilized across all games. Emphasis is on playability over endless cluttering detail.
   
   
3. Maintain/update current rules set as ADVANCED level rules set.
   
   
4. Resolve the dichotomy in the two main Europa supply systems. The “continental” system like in FITE/SE/SF does not handle the North Africa/Middle East region adequately. The “desert” system in the desert games would be overwhelming if applied to the continent and likely too gamey as as well.
   
   
5. Create Grand Campaign Scenarios, allowing the entire war in Europe/North Africa/Western Asia to be played from these start dates: Jun II 41, Apr I 42, Apr I 43, and Apr I 44.

Secondary Goals (in no particular order):

• Soviet OB 1939-41.
  
  
• Update British Isles maps.
  
  
• Update French OB 1939-40. This should be a minor update, as Fall of France got most things right. However, my main source was Guerre 1939-1945 Les Grandes Unités Françaises, a multi-volume work on the French army by the historical service of the French Army. This is quite good on units that were committed to the field armies but less so on units that remained in the rear areas. Further, more details on specific units are available than what Grandes Unités Françaises covered.


• Blitz Europa: a very reduced rules set with very high playability using the existing maps and counters.
  
  
• Various other secondary updates and revisions.
  
  
• Classic Europa Grand Campaign Scenarios for Sep I 39, May I 40, Sep I 40, and Apr I 41.

Other Goals

• Detailed production system.
  
  
• What if the war went into 1946
  
  
• What if the war started in 1938
  
  
• etc.      ⬣
  
  

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The image at the top of this page comes from the original Europa Newsletter. That newsletter was published by GDW, printed on paper, and delivered by mail to Europa fans across the US and around the world in the 1970s. We reproduce the original masthead here as an homage to Europa’s past and a signal Europa is returning to its roots.