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.
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.
Days of Wonder is a board game publisher founded in 2002 and owned by Asmodee Group since 2014. Days of Wonder distributes its games to 25 countries. It specializes in German-style board games and has branched out to include some online games. Days of Wonder has published games in several languages including English, Dutch, French, German, Russian, and Greek. Days of Wonder was co-founded by Eric Hautemont, Mark Kaufmann and Yann Corno.
Battle Masters is a miniature wargame by Milton Bradley, made in collaboration with Games Workshop in 1992. It is thematically similar to Warhammer Fantasy Battle, but with much simpler game mechanics. Like other Milton Bradley/Games Workshop partnership board games HeroQuest and Space Crusade, Battle Masters was designed by Stephen Baker, who later went on to design the popular game Heroscape.
MechWarrior: Dark Age was a tabletop wargame by WizKids set in the BattleTech universe that uses the Clix system. The game's miniatures are pre-painted models of infantry squads, vehicles, and giant walking war machines known as BattleMechs or more simply "'mechs".
Battle Cry is a board wargame based on the American Civil War, designed by Richard Borg and published by Avalon Hill in 2000.
Battle of the Bulge is a board wargame published by Avalon Hill (AH) in 1965 that simulates the World War II battle of the same name. General Anthony McAuliffe (ret.), who had been commanding officer at Bastogne during the Battle of the Bulge, was a consultant during the game's development. The game proved popular and sold more than 120,000 copies, but was dogged by criticisms of historical inaccuracies, and was finally replaced by a completely new edition in 1981. A third edition in 1991 was released as part of the Smithsonian American History Series.
Horus Heresy is an out-of-print collectible card game originally produced in 2003 by Sabertooth Games. The game is set in the Warhammer 40,000 fictional universe developed by parent company Games Workshop. It attempts to recreate the struggle between the Loyalist forces of the Emperor of Mankind and the Traitor forces of Warmaster Horus, during the civil war known as the Horus Heresy. The game's development and sale by the publisher were discontinued in 2008, following financial difficulties at the parent company.
The Last Crusade is an out-of-print collectible card game originally published in December 1995 by Virginia-based Chameleon Eclectic Entertainment until the company closed in early 1999, at which time Pinnacle Entertainment Group took over production.
BattleLore is a strategy board wargame for two players, created by Richard Borg and initially published by Days of Wonder in 2006. The game is based on the same mechanics as Battle Cry, Memoir '44 and Commands & Colors: Ancients, but has a fantasy and medieval theme.
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:
Tide of Iron is a World War II based wargame designed and published in 2007 by Fantasy Flight Games, also notable for publishing other large games containing a large number of counters and/or other components such as World of Warcraft: The Board Game and Arkham Horror.
Commands & Colors: Ancients is a board wargame designed by Richard Borg, Pat Kurivial, and Roy Grider, and published by GMT Games in 2006. It is based on Borg's Commands & Colors system using some elements similar to his other games such as Commands & Colours: Napoleonics, The Great War, Memoir '44 and Battle Cry designed to simulate the "fog of war" and uncertainty encountered on real battlefields.
Strategic Command 2: Blitzkrieg is a grand strategy computer game developed by Canadian studio Fury Software, and published by Battlefront.com in 2006. The second game in the Strategic Command series, Blitzkrieg is a turn-based strategy set in World War II, focusing on the European Theater. The player controls all of either Axis or Allied states.
Down in Flames is a computer video game for Microsoft Windows, developed by American studio Dan Verssen Games and published by Battlefront.com in 2005. Closely based on a card-driven tabletop game of the same name, Down in Flames is a turn-based simulation of dogfights between World War II fighter planes. Some parts of the game also involve escorting and intercepting bombers.
Air Force is a board wargame published by Battleline Publications in 1976, and subsequently re-released by Avalon Hill in 1977, that simulates air combat during World War II. Several expansions for the game were also published.
Panzer Campaigns is a series of operational level wargames originally developed by John Tiller Software, and currently by Wargame Design Studio. The games were originally published until 2010 by HPS Simulations, then self published by John Tiller Software until being bought out by Wargame Design Studio in 2021, after Tiller's death. There are currently 29 titles in the series, spanning the various fronts of World War II.
Heroscape is an expandable turn-based miniature wargaming system originally manufactured by Hasbro subsidiaries from 2004 until its discontinuation in November 2010. Geared towards younger players, the game is played using pre-painted miniature figures on a board made from interlocking hexagonal tiles, allowing for the construction of an interchangeable and variable 3D landscape. This system and the relatively high production quality of the game materials have been lauded by fans even years after the game was discontinued, eventually leading to its revival in 2024.
Armageddon: Tactical Combat, 3000-500 BC is a board wargame first published by Simulations Publications Inc. (SPI) in 1972 in Strategy & Tactics, then released as a stand-alone game, then reimplemented as Chariot: Tactical Warfare in the "Biblical" Age, 3000-500 BC.
Bloody Buna is a board wargame published by the British wargame publisher World Wide Wargames (3W) in 1972 that simulates the New Guinea Campaign between Japanese and Allied forces during World War II. The game is notable for being the only board wargame published in the 20th century that focused on the war in New Guinea.
