Emanuele Santandrea

as an non-commissioned officer in the most decorated unit of the Italian Army, the 3° Reggimento Bersaglieri, where he worked as topographer during the war in Bosnia. Serving during the Cold War, his father Antonio was an officer in the elite Brigata Paracadutisti Folgore. His grandfather Alfredo served as an artillery officer in the Regina Infantry Division and fought at Kos during World War II. Aunt Patricia also worked as a senior staff member for the Central Intelligence Agency from 1954 to 2000. Emanuele has played historical wargames since childhood. As a fan of Star Wars, in 2002 he has created ISF, the Italian League of Galactic Battlegrounds. Ranked 8th worldwide, the following season he was recruited by the legendary Yuuzhan Vong to lead the team and climbed the worldwide rank up to the 3rd. He started VentoNuovo Games (VNG) in 2012 with a key mindset of creating quality wargame artwork for players. Emanuele, discussing maps, counters, and game features, has stated: "Some say that VNG works harder than it needs to on small details of texture and color." In 2009, together with Matteo Fiorino, he has developed ULTRO, a partially diceless system to reduce alea in wargaming. After developing the Blocks Series, he has created the first wargame into a 1:1 scale brass artillery shell replica roughly 1 meter tall. Then he worked to develope a brand new diceless WW1 series for Hewlett Packard, and later employed the same system for Waterloo 200 and Germany at War. He has then developed the Barbarossa Trilogy using another innovative impulse system engine. In 2017, using reserved documentation, he started drawing the map of Stalingrad in a 1:5000 scale to depict the city as it was in 1942 before the infamous battle. The map is over 5 meters wide and was printed in a 1:10000 scale for the Collector's Edition of Stalingrad Inferno. This work corrected many mistakes arosen during the years and is the only correct map of the city. "Most players agree with us that these aspects add to the feeling of a good game like a new breeze … which is what Vento Nuovo means.". Emanuele enjoys interacting with his customers and strives to improve their gaming experience. He is always available over email and other venues to provide design context, answer questions, and resolve problems. VNG has a proven track record with Kickstarter, delivering on promises and exceeding expectations. Several projects, such as Moscow '41, Leningrad ’41, Kiev ’41, Stalingrad: Inferno on the Volga, and Black Swan, were successfully completed and shipped out to customers 2 – 3 months earlier than initially advertised. VNG’s supply chain in the European Union is accountable, responsive, and always ensures quality components. Collaborating at the international level for years, Emanuele is a true citizen of the world. He ensures that VNG pursues a policy for sustainable development and has signed a pact against cyber-attack, net-bullying, and racism. Emanuele has been working as a scientific and investigative consultant for years and wrote several criminal profiles and dossiers. He also has been the curator and host of "La Notte del Mistero" on RadioFlorenceInternational for two seasons. After the successful release of Black Swan in 2020 and its sibling game Orange Swan in 2022, Emanuele has embarked on another endeavor for release in 2024. His new project, Blitz in the East, will cover the campaign in Russia during World War II at the strategic level. Incorporating a brand new engine with fabulous graphics, this new game is designed to bring a new refreshing feel to the war in the East.