The Thesis

Wargaming has always had a language problem. The genre speaks in hexes and combat results tables and supply lines, and the audience that speaks that language is devoted but shrinking. For decades, designers tried to solve the problem by simplifying — stripping away rules until a wargame felt more like a board game. Chad Jensen solved it differently. He kept the complexity and made it feel like a story.

Combat Commander: Europe, published by GMT Games in 2006, didn’t simplify tactical World War II combat. It dramatized it. A card-driven system replaced dice with hands of cards that doubled as orders, events, and fate. You didn’t roll to see if your squad advanced — you played a card, and the card told a story about what happened when they tried. The fog of war wasn’t simulated through hidden information rules; it was built into the engine itself, emerging naturally from the randomness of the draw.

Four years later, Dominant Species proved Jensen could build in a completely different register — a deep, combative area-control game themed around evolution that played like a Euro but fought like a wargame. It won the Golden Geek Award for Best Strategy Board Game and remains one of the highest-rated games on BoardGameGeek fourteen years later.

Jensen died of pancreatic cancer on November 14, 2019, at the age of fifty-two. He left behind unfinished designs, a wife who continues his work at GMT Games, and a memorial award for emerging wargame designers that bears his name. The career was thirteen years long. Every published design was well-received. The trajectory was still climbing when it ended.

Invention — 6: “Smart Combination”

Jensen’s signature move was hybridizing wargame and Euro design in ways that genuinely expanded both audiences. Combat Commander used card-driven mechanics to create fog of war and tactical unpredictability at squad level — not the first card-driven wargame (We the People and Hannibal preceded it), but one of the best implementations of the concept. The cards didn’t just resolve actions; they generated narrative. A hand of cards became a story about what your platoon could and couldn’t do under pressure.

Dominant Species took area control, worker placement, and evolutionary theme and fused them into a deeply strategic game that attracted Euro gamers who’d never touched a hex. The Fighting Formations initiative system introduced a dynamic turn-order mechanic that influenced later designs including the posthumous Downfall. Not a 7 because card-driven wargames predated him and his innovations were brilliant combinations rather than new categories. Not a 5 because the Euro-wargame hybrid he championed genuinely changed how both communities thought about the other.

Architecture — 7: “Built to Last”

Combat Commander: Europe has sustained nearly twenty years of continuous play. Multiple printings — 2006, 2008, 2014, 2019, and a 20th Anniversary Edition combining Europe and Mediterranean content. The scenario-based design generates enormous replay value from the card-driven engine; no two plays of the same scenario feel alike because the card draws create different narratives each time. The system proved robust enough to extend across theaters: Mediterranean, Pacific, Vietnam.

Dominant Species has seen six-plus printings over fourteen years and remains one of the highest-rated strategy games on BoardGameGeek. Fighting Formations established a series architecture sturdy enough that other designers extended it after Jensen’s death. The posthumous Downfall — completed by John Butterfield with Kai Jensen’s assistance — won multiple Charles S. Roberts Awards, proving the architectural vision held even when finished by another hand. Not an 8 because the games serve a dedicated niche rather than defining an entire genre’s template. Not a 6 because the structural longevity and community devotion across multiple titles are exceptional by any standard.

Mastery — 6: “Seasoned Professional”

Thirteen years of active design, from 2006 to 2019. Every published design was well-received — an unusual batting average in any creative field. Golden Geek Award for Best Strategy Board Game. Multiple Charles S. Roberts Awards, including posthumous recognition for Downfall. Renowned for exceptionally clear rulebook writing that set industry standards for how complex games should communicate their systems to players.

The identifiable voice is unmistakable: tension between strategic planning and chaotic disruption, card-driven engines that generate narrative, architectures that reward repeated play. The collaboration with wife Kai Jensen deepened across the career. The trajectory — from Combat Commander’s focused tactical design through Dominant Species’ broader strategic ambition to Downfall’s grand-strategic scope — shows clear artistic evolution toward increasingly ambitious structures.

Not a 7 because the career was tragically abbreviated. Thirteen years and roughly ten published designs, several left unfinished. The highest mastery scores require decades of sustained output. Not a 5 because the consistency, the award recognition, the clear artistic growth, and the deep industry respect demonstrate mastery well beyond a skilled professional.

The Legacy

Chad Jensen died with games still unfinished. That fact says everything about the kind of designer he was — not the kind who runs out of ideas, but the kind who runs out of time. Downfall took ten years of research and design experimentation. Golden Gate Park’s rulebook remains in progress. The ambition kept growing. The body didn’t keep pace.

What he left behind is a body of work that proved something the wargaming community had long suspected and the Euro community had long denied: that the two traditions had more in common than either wanted to admit. Combat Commander showed that wargames could generate the kind of emergent narrative that no amount of flavor text could replicate. Dominant Species showed that a Euro-weight game could be deeply, beautifully mean. Both proved that complexity, handled with craft and clarity, didn’t narrow an audience — it earned one.

Thirteen years. Every design well-received. A memorial award for the designers who come next. The Bridge-Builder didn’t get to finish crossing, but the span he completed is holding traffic just fine.

Total: 23 points. Year: 2006.

FINAL SCORE: Invention 6 + Architecture 7 + Mastery 6 + Adjustments 4 = 23/41 (2006)

Thirteen years. Every design well-received. A memorial award for the designers who come next. The Bridge-Builder didn’t get to finish crossing, but the span he completed is holding traffic just fine.