Historic Enterprises Company designs and publishes rules for historical miniature wargames. Historic Enterprises Company is a partnership between two wargamers and authors, Les Benoodt and Phil Johnston, with a lot of help from wargamers around the country.

Our Design Philosophy
Historic Enterprises Company is dedicated to the proposition that playability and realism are not mutually exclusive--or even unfriendly to each other. Rather, what often is mistaken for realism is an excess of mechanical details which are incompatible with realism.

Realism consists in determining what you want to represent in the wargame rules and single-mindedly focusing on that goal.

We begin each design process by asking these simple questions: Who on the battlefield do the players represent? (Army commander, a local feudal lord, etc.) What did those people do/how did they interact with the battlefield environment? What are the key decisions that person would make? From the answers to these three questions, we develop the all important "perspective" of our rules. Perspective determines what elements of the battlefield and battlefield command are emphasized and what elements are abstracted or simplified.

For a more lengthy discussion of various aspects of wargaming realism, our approach, etc., visit the Home page to see several pieces Phil wrote on the subject.

Our Rules
Historic Enterprises Company has published three sets rules along with complementary army lists, aids and scenarios:

Castles, Cogs, & Chevauchées
Rules for Medieval sieges, naval actions and a campaigns.
Cold Steel
Brigade level rules for the Horse & Musket period.
Knights and Knaves
Skirmish level game of medieval combat.
All rule sets are available, free of charge, from our Home page.

Historic Enterprises Company has sold products throughout the world, though the bulk of its market is in the United States. All Historic Enterprises Company products are available, free of charge