About

Serious Historical Games has been created by Philippe Hardy (see also this page on BoardGameGeek).

Who am I

Passionate about military history, here are my big dates for the wargames and my contribution to our hobby.

1982: discovering wargames at the age of 15: my first game bought is “Napoleon’s last battles” by Kevin Zucker at SPI.

2012: design of a first game for VaeVictis. Since continued collaboration with the design of a game per year for this magnificent magazine (series “Gold & steel” with 7 titles).

2022: creation of the company Serious Historical Games which brings together a talented team of passionate people to create a unique and quality editorial line: Pascal Da Silva (counters graphics, rules layout), Giuseppe Rava (cover boxes), Julien Peltier (historical mapping), Sébastien Brunel (maps), Bertrand L. (website).

Among the 22 games created to date, the vast majority deal with conflicts of the Renaissance in the «broad» sense (1453-1618) and civil wars (French religious wars, Sengoku Jidai). However, I have a particular attraction for the so-called «transformation» periods where the arrival of new technologies or new ways of fighting come to disrupt the art of war. All our games are produced in Europe.

Game design

Designer for the French editors VaeVictis (14 games), Hexasim (2 games) and Ludifolie (1 game) since 2012 and for Serious Historical Games since 2022 (3 games).

Designer of “Gold & steel” series representing early Renaissance military wars from 1453 to 1537.

List of my games