A wargame is a strategy game in which two or more players command opposing armed forces in a simulation of an armed conflict. 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 re-create 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, air combat, and cyber as well as many that combine various domains.
GMT Games is a California-based wargaming publisher founded in 1990. The company has become well known for graphically attractive games that range from "monster games", of many maps and counters, to quite simple games suitable for introducing new players to wargaming. They also produce card games and family games. The current management and creative team includes Tony Curtis, Rodger MacGowan, Mark Simonitch, and Andy Lewis.
Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game is an out-of-print card game produced and marketed by Fantasy Flight Games from 2004 to 2015. It is based on Chaosium's Call of Cthulhu role-playing game, the writings of H. P. Lovecraft, and other Cthulhu Mythos fiction.
The Charles S. Roberts Awards is an annual award for excellence in manual, tabletop games, with a focus on "conflict simulations", which includes simulations of non-military as well as military conflicts, as well as simulations of related historical topics. From its founding in 1975 through 2021, the award was almost exclusively focused on historical wargaming, changing to a broader "conflict simulations" in award year 2022.
Blitzkrieg is a strategic-level wargame published by Avalon Hill in 1965 that simulates a non-historical attack by one major power against another using the blitzkrieg strategy. It was the first commercial wargame that did not simulate an actual historical battle, and with almost 400 counters, it was a precursor to the "monster" wargames of the 1970s featuring more than a thousand counters.
A government simulation or political simulation is a game that attempts to simulate the government and politics of all or part of a nation. These games may include geopolitical situations, the creation of domestic political policies, or the simulation of political campaigns. They differ from the genre of classical wargames due to their discouragement or abstraction of military or action elements.
Kingmaker is a board game published in the UK by PhilMar Ltd. in 1974 that simulates the political struggles to place a king on the throne of England during the Wars of the Roses. The game was popular, and other editions, including a computerized version, were produced by Avalon Hill, TM Games, and Gibsons Games. The game won a Charles S. Roberts Award in 1976.
Twilight Imperium is a strategy board game produced by Fantasy Flight Games and Asmodee in the genre of science fiction and space opera. It was designed by Christian T. Petersen and was first released in 1997. It is now in its fourth edition (2017), which has large changes over previous editions. It is known for the length of its games and its in-depth strategy. As of 2024, its compelling gameplay and enduring popularity have been hailed by Nerdist and Polygon as one of the "greatest board games ever made."
We the People is a board wargame about the American Revolution, published by Avalon Hill in 1993 and designed by Mark Herman. We the People was the first wargame to use cards as the primary way to control the pace and tempo of play, with a strong element of fog of war through the hidden card information. This started a new genre of wargames that have emphasized competitive play and a strong historical narrative.
Twilight Struggle: The Cold War, 1945–1989 is a board game for two players, published by GMT Games in 2005. Players are the United States and Soviet Union contesting each other's influence on the world map by using cards that correspond to historical events. The first game designed by Ananda Gupta and Jason Matthews, they intended it to be a quick-playing alternative to more complex card-driven wargames.
Enemy in Sight is a card game for 2–8 players published by Avalon Hill in 1988 that simulates naval warfare in the Age of Sail.
A board wargame is a wargame with a set playing surface or board, as opposed to being played on a computer or in a more free-form playing area as in miniatures games. The modern, commercial wargaming hobby developed in 1954 following the publication and commercial success of Tactics. The board wargaming hobby continues to enjoy a sizeable following, with a number of game publishers and gaming conventions dedicated to the hobby both in the English-speaking world and further afield.
Conflict of Heroes (CoH) is a tactical-level board wargame series that simulates firefights at the platoon or company level. Several games and expansions have been released in the series including, Price of Honour set in Poland in 1939, Awakening the Bear!, set in the World War II Eastern Front between the years 1941 and 1942, Storms of Steel, set in Kursk in 1943 and Guadalcanal, set on Guadalcanal in 1942. The game is played on one or more interchangeable map boards which are divided into hexagons for movement and firing regulation.
Conflict of Heroes: Storms of Steel, the second installment of the Conflict of Heroes board wargame series by Academy Games, was published in 2009. The game simulates the Battle of Kursk on the Eastern Front during World War II.
Mark Simonitch is an American wargame designer and graphic artist. His game designs include Hannibal: Rome vs. Carthage and Ardennes '44, and he has made maps for Wilderness War and Empire of the Sun among others. He has worked at Avalon Hill and GMT Games. He was inducted into the Charles Roberts Awards Hall of Fame in 2002.
Labyrinth: The War on Terror, 2001–? is a board game for one or two players, published by GMT Games in 2010.
Vietnam: 1965–1975 is a complex military and political board wargame that simulates the last decade of the Vietnam War. Published by Victory Games in 1984 less than a decade after the end of the war, the game faced criticism from some American observers for capitalizing on a topic that was still painful to many Americans.
Angola is a board wargame published in 1988 by Ragnar Brothers of Huddersfield UK that simulates the Angolan Civil War.
Ancient Conquest is a board wargame published by Excalibre Games in 1975 that simulates the clash of empires during the Bronze Age.
Eighth Air Force, subtitled "Air War Over Europe, 1942–45", is a card-based wargame published by GMT Games in 1995 that simulates the air combat between Allied and German aircraft during the final three years of World War II. This was the second game in the series Down in Flames, and required the previous game in the series, Rise of the Luftwaffe, in order to play.
