A wargame is a game that realistically simulates warfare, as opposed to abstract games such as chess. Wargaming may be played for recreation, to train military officers in the art of strategic thinking, or to study the nature of potential conflicts. Many wargames recreate specific historic battles, and can cover either whole wars, or any campaigns, battles, or lower-level engagements within them. Many simulate land combat, but there are wargames for naval and air combat as well.
Car Wars is a vehicle combat simulation game developed by Steve Jackson Games. It was first published in 1980. Players control armed vehicles in a post-apocalyptic future.
Warhammer 40,000 is a miniature wargame produced by Games Workshop. It is the most popular miniature wargame in the world, particularly in the United Kingdom. The first edition of the rulebook was published in September 1987, and the ninth and current edition was released in July 2020.
Blood Bowl is a miniatures board game created by Jervis Johnson for the British games company Games Workshop as a parody of American Football. The game was first released in 1986 and has been re-released in new editions since. Blood Bowl is set in an alternate version of the Warhammer Fantasy setting, populated by traditional fantasy elements such as human warriors, goblins, dwarves, elves, orcs and trolls.
Ogre is a science fiction board wargame designed by the American game designer Steve Jackson and published by Metagaming Concepts in 1977 as the first microgame in its MicroGame line. When Steve Jackson left Metagaming to form his own company, he took the rights to Ogre with him, and all subsequent editions have been produced by Steve Jackson Games (SJG).
Advanced Squad Leader (ASL) is a tactical-level board wargame, originally marketed by Avalon Hill Games, that simulates actions of squad sized units in World War II. It is a detailed game system for two or more players. Components include the ASL Rulebook and various games called modules. ASL modules provide the standard equipment for playing ASL, including geomorphic mapboards and counters. The mapboards are divided into hexagons to regulate fire and movement, and depict generic terrain that can represent different historical locations. The counters are cardboard pieces that depict squads of soldiers, crews, individual leaders, support weapons, heavy weapons, and vehicles.
Warhammer is a tabletop miniature wargame with a medieval fantasy theme that simulates battles between armies from different factions. The game was created by Bryan Ansell, Richard Halliwell, and Rick Priestley; it was published by the Games Workshop company.
Advanced HeroQuest is a board game published by Games Workshop in 1989, a sequel to HeroQuest.
Space Crusade is an adventure board game produced by Milton Bradley together with Games Workshop and was first made in 1990. It was produced in the UK and available in some other countries including Finland, Ireland, France, Spain, Denmark, Australia and New Zealand. In Germany, Italy, Belgium and the Netherlands, it is known as Star Quest.
PanzerBlitz is a tactical-scale board wargame of armoured combat set in the Eastern Front of the Second World War. The game is notable for being the first true board-based tactical-level, commercially available conflict simulation (wargame). It also pioneered concepts such as isomorphic mapboards and open-ended design, in which multiple unit counters were provided from which players could fashion their own free-form combat situations rather than simply replaying pre-structured scenarios.
Battlecars is a simple wargame based upon the Mad Max genre of a post-apocalyptic world dominated by aggressive, warring gangs. It was first published by Games Workshop in 1983 and the game designers were Gary Chalk and Ian Livingstone.
Battlesystem is a tabletop miniature wargame designed as a supplement for use with the Dungeons & Dragons role-playing game. The original Battlesystem was printed as a boxed set in 1985 for use with the first edition AD&D rules. For the second edition of AD&D, a new version of Battesystem was printed as a softcover book in 1989.
Dungeonquest is a fantasy adventure board game originally published in Sweden in 1985 by Alga AB as Drakborgen, and subsequently published in English by Games Workshop in 1987.
War of the Ring is a strategy board game by Roberto Di Meglio, Marco Maggi and Francesco Nepitello, first produced by Nexus Editrice (Italy) and currently published by Ares Games.
Wings of War, by Andrea Angiolino and Pier Giorgio Paglia, is a modular boardgame collection published by Nexus Editrice and dedicated to air combat. A new edition is published by Ares Games as Wings of Glory.
Air wargaming, like naval wargaming, is a niche specialism within the wider miniatures wargaming hobby. Due to the relatively short time over which aerial combat has developed air wargaming periods tend to break down into three broad periods:
RoboRally is a board game for 2–8 players published by Wizards of the Coast (WotC) in 1994. Various expansions and revisions have been published by both WotC and by Avalon Hill.
The Dungeons & Dragons Miniatures Game is a collectible miniatures game played with pre-painted, plastic miniature figures based on characters and monsters from the Dungeons & Dragons game. The figures are 30mm in scale. Produced by Wizards of the Coast, the Dungeons & Dragons Miniatures line is composed of 20 loosely themed sets that were released roughly every four months since the line was launched in 2003 until its cancellation in 2011.
Battle Over Britain is a board wargame published by the SPI subsidiary of TSR in 1983 that simulates the Battle of Britain.
Blue & Gray: Four American Civil War Battles is a board wargame originally published by Simulations Publications, Inc. (SPI) in 1975 that simulates four battles from the American Civil War.
