"Happy Birthday - Joe Morschauser" Topic

Today is the anniversary of the birth of Joseph Morschauser II
1924 – 1993

Joe was born on December 25th 1924 in New York City.

In Joe's own words:

"…, I was born. I have no way of knowing if this for sure since I was too young to remember, but they'll me it happened on December 25, 1924in a hospital in New York City…"

Joe is perhaps best known for his book "How to Play War Games in Miniature" published in 1962. This book was one of my earliest introductions to miniature war games. It is still one of my go-to books for war game inspiration. In many aspects of war gaming with miniatures,Joe was a man way ahead of his time; unit trays, roster system(s) and gridded war games, just to mention a few of his innovations…

Have a Merry Christmas everyone.

+1.

Outstanding!

I still have that book. Merry Christmas to you too!

I visited Joe In the early 1980s. He was not much of a war gamer at that time but he was kind enough to show me and my friend around his collection. All of his figures were 54 mm Britain's, on bases for his gridded games. Also some SAE figures.It was a very large collection in the multiple hundreds of bases. I always wondered what happened to that collection. Me being a Britain's collector as well.

Another good reason to celebrate 25th December!

For years I only knew of his wargames from an all too brief reference in one of Featherstone's books, but eventually acquired a copy via the internet and was very impressed – and not a little annoyed that we had not had the benefit of his simple, playable rules when I was starting out in the hobby.

John Curry has reprinted his book in his History of Wargaming Project, so his rules are now readily available on this side of the Atlantic.

Thanks for this, HistoriFigs! Joe Morschauser's "How to Play War Games In Miniature" inspired me to get into the hobby when I read it as a boy. Still have that same copy on my self, more than 40 years later.