Wargaming titan John Tiller has died John Tiller, the founder of John Tiller Software and a modern titan of wargaming, has died. Tiller passed April 26 following a “brief but courageous battle with brain cancer,” and was surrounded by his family in his Suwanee, Georgia home. He was 67. After earning a Ph.D in mathematics from McMaster University in 1980, Tiller began working in computer wargames at TalonSoft in 1995, working on 15 games and add-ons, including Battleground Gettysburg. As his obituary recalls, it was Tiller’s “lifelong interest in military history and strategic board games” that inspired him to strike out on his own a year later and found John Tiller Software in 1996.