It is with great sadness that I must report the passing of Jack Scruby, Father of Wargaming. To paraphrase a well known statement by Winston Churchill, "never have so many owed so much to just one". All that we know in the hobby of wargaming today can betraced back to the fertile mind of Jack. He began wargaming as an adul tin the early 1950s, using 54mm Britains, Minots, and the like. He had been an avid collector and painter. At figure collector meetings in California, he ran into others who shared his interest in gaming. He further expanded his network by corresponding with like-minded individuals in other parts of the US and in England. Up until thattime, gamers were restricted to using commercial toy soldiers for gaming, or makinglimited home castings using plaster of Paris. In 1955 Jack made a major breakthrough. He conceived of the idea of making figure moulds using RTV rubber. It was now possible for a person to produce large numbers of figures from asingle mould. lack began to proclucefigures made expressly for gaming. He also began to experimentwith rules for particular historical periods. Priorto this time there were only "generic" wargame rules, e.g., Little Wars. Jack also organized the first Wargaming Convention in 1956. Some 14 players attended; all were using 54mm figures. The success of the convention coupled with the network of gamers he had developed, led him to undertake two venture which set the stage for the hobby as we know it. He began to publish a magazine for gamers - War Games Digest (WGD), and he started Jack Scruby Miniatures. He was the first professional in the hobby. Over the next 30 years he continued to be involved. After WGD, he published Table Top Talk and the Miniature Parade. In the pages of these publications first appeared the various concepts of all modern rules: written orders, morale, moving stands, rosters, campaigns, historically based rules, skirmish games, "fantasy" games, to name a few. As publisher of those old magazines he set the standard for all future wargame publications and he brought together the ideas of many creative individuals between the years of 1957 and 1970. His figures were first 30mm and 20mm, but then tornatch the Airfix line, he turned to 25mmand later advocated 9mm as an alternative to the 1/300 scale. He went into all periods from ancient to modern. He was always finding some new historical episode for which to release a new line of figures. USvs Moros, orthe 30 Years War, Napoleon in Egypt, German Southwest Africa are but a few that I bought into. He continued to be involved in the figure business up to the present day. I have many of these old figures in my collection still, as I am sure, do many of those of you who got into the hobby prior to 1980. The figures and the old magazines, too, are still a source of enjoyment. Remember getting those boxes of shiny lead figures mixed in with mounds of sawdust or waiting for the next issue of his magazine to see what new period he would introduce or what new innovations would be expounded? Even though Jack was responsible for much of what we have in the hobby today in the way of complex and historically based rules, he always stressed the FUN aspect of the hobby. Countless of his editorials reminded us not to take ourselves too seriously. Jack never failed to strike down anyone who would set himself up as the final word in gaming, and, most importantly, he never tried to set himself up as the authority on anything. His style was to tell you what he did, suggest that you use and change his ideas as you saw fit and he wished you good luck. All of us in the hobby mourn his passing and will continue to remember our debt to him. Thanks for everything, Jack.. Back to Table of Contents -- Courier Vol. VIII No. 3 To Courier List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1988 by The Courier Publishing Company. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com