Wargames have a reputation problem. The genre’s public face is a map covered in cardboard counters, a rulebook with numbered sections, and an audience that already knows what a zone of control is. Plenty of people decide it is not for them without ever playing one.
That reputation describes about a fifth of the genre. The rest is far more approachable than it looks, and the good news is that there is a genuine ladder: a sequence of games where each one teaches you the idea the next one assumes you already have.
What actually makes a wargame hard
Not the theme, and not the maths. Three things:
- Rules volume. Historical games model specific situations, and specificity costs pages. A rulebook is not a difficulty rating, but it is a time commitment before anyone has played a turn.
- Assumed vocabulary. Zones of control, stacking limits, combat results tables. None of it is complicated; all of it is assumed.
- Asymmetry. The two sides usually have different forces, different objectives, and different odds, because history did. You cannot learn one side and know the game.
A good beginner wargame removes at least two of those. Here they are in order.
1. Memoir ‘44 — start here
Memoir ‘44 is the on-ramp almost everybody uses, and for good reason. You play cards to activate units in a section of the board, roll custom dice where the symbols tell you plainly what happened, and the whole thing is over in under an hour.
The rules are genuinely short. The scenarios are historical, the components are chunky and friendly, and critically, you cannot be paralysed by choice — your hand of cards limits what you can do each turn, which is exactly the training wheels a new player needs.
2 players · age 8+ · about 45 minutes · weight ~2.1
2. Undaunted: Normandy — the modern entry point
Undaunted: Normandy does something clever: it replaces the counter-pushing with deck-building. Your army is your deck, casualties remove cards from it, and reinforcing means adding cards back. Lose a squad and you feel it in your hand for the rest of the game.
It is the one to pick if you already play modern board games and the words “cardboard counters” are what is putting you off. Nothing here looks like a 1970s hex map.
2 players · age 14+ · about an hour · weight ~2.5
3. 1812: The Invasion of Canada — the one for a group
Most wargames are strictly two-player. 1812: The Invasion of Canada takes up to five, puts them on two teams, and uses wooden blocks that stand up facing you — so you know your own strength and can only guess at your opponent’s.
It is light, fast, genuinely funny, and the block mechanism teaches hidden information better than any amount of reading. Its sister game 1775: Rebellion does the same for the American War of Independence.
2–5 players · age 10+ · about 90 minutes · weight ~2.2
4. Watergate — if you want politics instead of battles
Watergate is a wargame in structure and a political thriller in theme: two players, one as the Nixon administration and one as the Washington Post, fighting over evidence rather than ground.
This is the gentlest introduction to the card-driven game, the single most important design family in modern wargaming. You will meet the same idea again in heavier form, and meeting it here first makes that far easier.
2 players · age 12+ · about an hour · weight ~2.5
5. Twilight Struggle — the destination
Twilight Struggle is the whole Cold War in a card-driven game for two, and it spent years as the highest-rated game in the hobby. Every card helps you and helps your opponent, and choosing which half to use is the entire game.
It is a real step up and it is also the point of the ladder. If you have played the four above, this is reachable. If you start here, there is a decent chance you stop.
2 players · age 13+ · about three hours · weight ~3.6
Where to go next
Once those feel comfortable, the genre opens up in three directions:
- Deeper tactics. Commands & Colors: Ancients is Memoir ‘44’s system with the training wheels off, and Combat Commander: Europe is squad-level play where the cards generate the chaos of a firefight.
- Blocks and bluffing. Hammer of the Scots and Sekigahara: The Unification of Japan are both short, elegant, and far less fiddly than their subject matter suggests.
- Grand strategy. Paths of Glory for the First World War, or Axis & Allies if you want the one your uncle owns.
Two that are not wargames, and will still scratch the itch
If the ladder still looks like work, two games sit next to the genre without belonging to it. Star Wars: Rebellion is a hidden-movement war for the galaxy that plays like a thriller, and Root is an asymmetric woodland conflict where every faction plays by different rules. Both teach asymmetry and map control painlessly.
What to skip at the start
- Anything described as a “monster game”. Multi-map, multi-day campaigns are a real and rewarding part of the hobby, and a terrible first purchase.
- Anything needing errata to play. Older titles sometimes do. Check that the edition you are buying is the current one.
- Anything above about 3.5 complexity until you have played two or three of the above. What that number means is worth reading first — in this genre especially, it is a reliable predictor of whether a game reaches the table.
The short version
| If you… | Start with |
|---|---|
| Have never played one | Memoir ‘44 |
| Already play modern board games | Undaunted: Normandy |
| Want to play with more than two | 1812: The Invasion of Canada |
| Prefer politics to battles | Watergate |
| Are ready for the real thing | Twilight Struggle |
Our top 5 wargames is ranked across the whole category rather than filtered for newcomers, so treat it as the view from the top of the ladder rather than the first rung.