Wargame

Simulations of military operations ranging from the historic to the hypothetical and fantastic. Game scale can range from man-to-man combat to strategic level operations. Units are most commonly represented by cardboard chits on a hexagonal map though a number of games use miniatures.

While kids have been playing at war with toy soldiers and other figurines for ages, the first official recreational wargame rules in the modern sense were devised by H.G. Wells, the science fiction author, in 1913. At that time, the neckbeard had not yet come into style, so Mr. Wells had to settle for a rather dapper moustache. So be classy and take a look at the rules for the first ever Wargame, right here.

Of course, while an entertaining pastime, wargamers have been used in a practical sense by actual, real-world militaries to simulate and plan for different scenarios in the real world. The best example of this was the Western Approaches Tactical Unit, which trained many naval officers of the Allied powers and provided real-time military analysis and useful tactics for the Battle of the Atlantic.