Bruce Herke

I grew up reading my father’s American Civil War and WWII books, and persuading my family to take me to battlefields on every vacation from age 5-10. During this time I developed knowledge of military history akin to how some American kids are with baseball trivia. I then discovered boardgames through Strategy & Tactics Magazine, and miniatures gaming through the US army’s 1970s Dunn Kempf micro-armor system. I started playing role-playing games in 1982, and went on to play hundreds of different games across all genres of hobby gaming. As an undergraduate, I studied the history of the developing world and anthropology, and more recently I’ve been working toward a Masters in Technological History. Growing up near Crazy Egor’s DGW, my first job out of college was selling wargames. I went on to a 7 year hobby game distribution career with Chessex and The Armory, working through and beyond their merger into Alliance Games and their expansion to the west coast. From there I worked at Nintendo for 2 years selling the Pokémon TCG, and then 5 years at a custom printer. I’m glad to be back in the hobby industry, and elated to be working at Osprey, whose books I’ve read for decades.

My favorite tank is the Swedish S-23 because it is so eccentric looking…some people say it isn’t a tank because it doesn’t have a turret, but I appreciate it for how it combines an odd silhouette with total functionality for the defensive purpose the designers had in mind.