Popular Wargame Systems & Mechanics
Brian Morris
United States
Raytown
Missouri
2nd, 6th & 7th Wisconsin, 19th Indiana, 24th Michigan
24th Michigan monument at Gettysburg Pa.
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I remember when I started playing wargames when I was a kid. Back then (now you aren't going to ask me my age now are you?) most wargames used a variation of the tried and true hex and counter system. You had a map with a hex grid, some combat tables, dice and some counters. For the most part in the late 1970s 95% of the wargames were descendants of Charles Roberts' early Avalon Hill titles like Gettysburg.
Today however while the hex and counter game system is still widely used, we also have seen a ton of other innovative systems and mechanics in use. Today we have CDGs, battle card driven, area impulse and block games. There seems to be an explosion in our hobby of new and innovative systems and mechanics. I think in part this is due to the loss of Avalon Hill. In the 70s and 80s Avalon Hill ruled the hobby and while they put out great games, I think anytime you put all your eggs in one basket you lose a bit on the innovation side. Many of the newer game mechanics have been created or refined in the last 10 years as more companies emerge and new designers create new games. Game companies that may not have been able to survive had Avalon Hill still ruled the hobby.
So with all that in mind I thought it might be fun to explore the many different systems and game mechanics that are currently popular in the wargaming hobby.
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Brian Morris
United States
Raytown
Missouri
2nd, 6th & 7th Wisconsin, 19th Indiana, 24th Michigan
24th Michigan monument at Gettysburg Pa.
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Hex and Counter
A classic example of the hex and counter wargame. You got your hex map, dice, unit markers and your combat tables. The tried and true system. If you're a wargamer this is the one system you are most likely to have at least one game of in your collection. The system likely had it's heyday in the 70s and 80s with Avalon Hill and SPI. Today probably MMP is the top company in terms of the classic hex and counter wargame. Especially with it now publishing the games of Dean Essig.
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Brian Morris
United States
Raytown
Missouri
2nd, 6th & 7th Wisconsin, 19th Indiana, 24th Michigan
24th Michigan monument at Gettysburg Pa.
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Block Games
I'm not sure of Columbia Games created the first block game but it sure popularized them. They and Worthington Games have made blockgames the center of their gaming companies. The system works great for wargaming as it allows for the fog of war where your opponent is unsure of your unit strengths. Something that is extremely hard to do with classic hex and counter. It's also makes keeping track of unit strengths easy. You take a hit you turn your block. If your unit gains strength you turn it the other way. Simple.
GMT has recently taken strong strides in this area. They've published several popular titles in the past such as Europe Engulfed and have a large number of titles in the works including PQ-17, Fast Action Battles: The Bulge and Asia Engulfed.
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Brian Morris
United States
Raytown
Missouri
2nd, 6th & 7th Wisconsin, 19th Indiana, 24th Michigan
24th Michigan monument at Gettysburg Pa.
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Card Driven Wargame
Some people don't like this term and others try to drop in any wargame that uses cards into this category. A card driven wargame however is the term used today to refer to games descended from Mark Herman's Avalon Hill title We The People. In a CDG the cards are used for a variety purposes including OPs, replacement points and historical events that effected the conflict.
The advantage of the CDG is it allows for outside political and social events to influence the conflict in a way similar to how they did in reality. It does this without having to rely on random event tables and thus players can use them as part of a hand management strategy and use those events to their advantage or their opponents disadvantage.
The card driven system is an excellent system for strategic level simulations but so far hasn't been used really for tactical wargaming.
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Brian Morris
United States
Raytown
Missouri
2nd, 6th & 7th Wisconsin, 19th Indiana, 24th Michigan
24th Michigan monument at Gettysburg Pa.
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Battle Card Driven
Sometimes people call games of this type CDGs but truth is they are in no way descended from Mark Herman's system. The battle card system is a fuzzy area as it involves the cards being used to directly effect the combat. Combat Commander: Europe and Memoir'44 are both good examples of battle card driven wargames. I've heard Kingmaker called a battle card driven wargame and I can see the merits in that argument I think.
We're definitely seeing cards used more and more in wargame design these days. Where in the past they were mostly used for random events and things of that nature, they are being used more and more in tactical simulations.
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Brian Morris
United States
Raytown
Missouri
2nd, 6th & 7th Wisconsin, 19th Indiana, 24th Michigan
24th Michigan monument at Gettysburg Pa.
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Point to Point Movement
Not a mechanic really but a map type that is becoming more and more popular today, especially in the CDGs although Herman's Empire of the Sun used a classic hex map.
I've heard some people say they prefer the classic hex map or even an area map. However truth be told the point to point is no different from the area map style we've seen for so many years in games like Risk. Each territory is connected to certain number of neighboring territories. So I think in the end the point to point really isn't a huge innovation and whether you like it over an area map is simply a matter of personal taste rather than one of any practical reasoning as tactically they are the same.
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Brian Morris
United States
Raytown
Missouri
2nd, 6th & 7th Wisconsin, 19th Indiana, 24th Michigan
24th Michigan monument at Gettysburg Pa.
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Area Impulse
A system that's been around for a while but recently got a kick start as the result of several new games released by designer Michael Rinella. These games being this one and Monty's Gamble. Both have been very well received. In this system a specific area is activated for movement of combat rather than specific units.
The system is difficult to get your head around at first if your use to the more traditional type of wargames. Not War But Murder however is a great intro into this as it's not as complex as Monty's Gamble or Breakout Normandy.
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Brian Morris
United States
Raytown
Missouri
2nd, 6th & 7th Wisconsin, 19th Indiana, 24th Michigan
24th Michigan monument at Gettysburg Pa.
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Card Games
Ok, card games aren't exactly a mechanic or a system in and of itself. However they are becoming more and more popular in wargaming as fillers. You could do a whole geeklist on card game mechanics in and of itself so I won't delve to deeply on this. However if you are just getting into wargaming it wouldn't be a bad idea to have one or two wargame themed card games in your collection for night you just want to toss something simple down on the table and play for an hour or so.
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Brian Morris
United States
Raytown
Missouri
2nd, 6th & 7th Wisconsin, 19th Indiana, 24th Michigan
24th Michigan monument at Gettysburg Pa.
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Miniatures
Another backbone of the wargaming hobby is the miniature combat system. There are a ton of different miniature systems covering land, sea, air and even space. Rule systems such as DBA, Shako, Fire & Fury, General Quarters and Raiders & Blockaders cover the gambit of historical conflict. In general however they all use measured movement rather than hexes. Here the tape measure is king.
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Brian Morris
United States
Raytown
Missouri
2nd, 6th & 7th Wisconsin, 19th Indiana, 24th Michigan
24th Michigan monument at Gettysburg Pa.
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Clix
Sort of a variation on the classic miniatures, The Clix system is a system used by Wizkids to simulate a wide variety of themes including wargame themes such as Mechwarrior. The system uses either measured movement such as with Mechwarrior or square grid movement such as in the game Heroclix. while not used for games with a historical conflict base so far, I think we can definitely say Mechwarrior is a wargame. Clix games are definitely games of conflict and tactical mechanics.
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Brian Morris
United States
Raytown
Missouri
2nd, 6th & 7th Wisconsin, 19th Indiana, 24th Michigan
24th Michigan monument at Gettysburg Pa.
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Hand Management
More and more games today are using hand management mechanics. Be they card driven, battle card driven or what have you. Friedrich is a good example of how the cards in your hand can dictate your strategic options and managing your hand is as important as making a wise decision on where to move your pieces.
A lot of people don't really care for hand management in wargames. I often hear people claim it brings to much luck into a game (like dice don't?. However a player with strong hand management skills will certainly have an advantage. It's just as important how you play your hand as it is what's in it. If you just rely on the luck of the draw and always play the best card in your hand every turn, you will lose to another player with a poorer hand if he knows how to manage that hand better than you.
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THE MAVERICK
Afghanistan
(Currently far from) Herald
California
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The Ace of Aces games are played using two picture books (one Allied and one German, in the World War I editions) which show different views "from the cockpit" on each page. A list of maneuvers appears at the bottom of each page. The players secretly select their maneuvers, and when these are simultaneously revealed they are cross-indexed to lead to a page showing the resulting position of the two aircraft.
The basic system is deceptively easy and fast playing. Later editions of the game extended the system to World War II and modern jet combat. The game system also reached out into the realms of science fiction (Star Wars fighters), fantasy (Dragonriders of Pern), and even a western gunfight game.
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Ted Kim
United States
Torrance
California
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Chit pull - units/commands activated by random chit picks from a cup. It's an attempt to show limitations on player control to orchestrate events (execution of orders) in a precise sequence and schedule. In particular the cooperation between commands has severe limits.
This game is probably not the first to use this mechanic, but it is known for using it (even the timing of the combat phase is dependent on chit pull).
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Ted Kim
United States
Torrance
California
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Untried Units - the true combat strengths of a unit are unknown until actually in combat. I think Invasion America was the first game to do this in modern wargames. Later there variants were untried units were drawn from different pools depending on the average quality, so you would have some clue about which units were better than others.
I think most people really noticed this with PanzerGruppe Guderian, but that was actually published slightly later. PGG has the famous case where the units may turn out to have zero combat strengths and evaporate completely in combat.
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Robert Wesley
Nepal
Aberdeen
Washington
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 Standup Hidden Counters
Sort of the "cheaper man's" alternative to the 'blocks'! There are several kinds for this as well, what with the likes of that The Hunt for Red October, and Red Storm Rising, or even A Line in the Sand: The Battle of Iraq, being more similar to one another than to this 'one' I've shown here. The "Europe Aflame" also has 'break-down' counters, to denote smaller or larger denominations of the basic same type. Then, there are the "Army Groups" feature, which allows for greater concentrations of forces and "woe" to someone uncovering ONE of THAT, where they had expected JUST a single 'Unit' instead!
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Robert Wesley
Nepal
Aberdeen
Washington
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 Area Movement and Accumulating Points Ability
This would include plenty of others, such as "Axis & Allies", while also denoting that you want to "capture" the higher 'points' ones, in order to amass "building power" for costlier 'projects'. Many of these also have some manner of "Technology" advances that you may wish to attempt and gain, for using such to have your current 'Units' become "improved" through those.
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Robert Wesley
Nepal
Aberdeen
Washington
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Pre-plotted Movement of Units
There have been quite a few for this 'method', with not too many becoming truly *popular* due to that, in fact. Some have even provided a "Phased" manner, in which a step-by-step approach is used, to resolve these as the TURN progresses throughout such. It allows certain 'aspects' to become realized, like when you "align" your vessel to either bring around or turn away from favoring ONE 'side', to yet another.
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17.
Board Game: Ogre
[Average Rating:6.88 Overall Rank:602]
Robert Wesley
Nepal
Aberdeen
Washington
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 Futuristic Settings
Of course, we have plentiful another that surmises some "contemporary" event taking place, while yet others will take US w-a-y INTO the "Future"!... OR within some "Past" "mythical" places!
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Robert Wesley
Nepal
Aberdeen
Washington
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Luckless and/or Diceless Systems
I noticed someone 'mentioning' about these in the 'comments' below, so here you go now! Usually, you will have a "comparison" between the 'involved' 'Units', with varying results obtained depending on certain "factors", or their disparities of such as are presented for determining an "outcome".
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Ted Kim
United States
Torrance
California
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Reaction Movement - the comments for this list have debated whether the demise of AH had anything to do with a wave of innovation, such as getting away from the standard "Ugo-Igo" (really "you go, I go", meaning strictly alternating turns). Surprisingly, even games as old as this RAND game (from 1974) had reaction movement in it, wherein you could put some units in reserve and move them in your opponents turn to spoil their carefully planned attacks.
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Michael Von Ahnen
United States
Dallas
Texas
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Now this is what I would call a classic hex and counter. Not exactly one of AH Classics, given its dual impulse movement. But my all time favorite. Given that it is still in print 30+ years later, I guess I am not the only one.
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21.
Board Game: 1914
[Average Rating:5.52 Overall Rank:6402]
Robert Wesley
Nepal
Aberdeen
Washington
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Step Reduction, Inverted & Hidden Units
Also having a pre-plotted "Deployment" map, along with VARIANT "Event" 'Cards', as well with a very artistic game board rendering for it all. There were even some "solitaire" RULES included, and that sure was handy!
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Tables and Charts
Most wargames make extensive use of various tables and charts. The CRT is one of the defining features that usually separate a wargame from a "regular" boardgame. Some wargames, especially solitary ones, make extensive use of tables to generate what happens in the game.
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Programmed Paragraph
This may not quite fit the popular stipulation of the list since it is not in common use. However, it is definitely worth mentioning since it is so different. A rather unique system where the gamer consults a paragraph to see what happens. The Ambush series is the only one I can think of (or at least from the games I own) that uses this unusual approach. Anyone know of other wargames that use this system?
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Jan van der Laan
Netherlands
Leeuwarden
Friesland
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I dont't know how to exactly describe this game system (tabletop/minis, carddriven, hidden movement) but imho it's a mixture of some of the above mentioned games and thereby a fairly different gamesystem on it's own. And above all: it's a very nice game to play.
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Hunga Dunga
United States
Portland
Oregon
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Acceptance of Orders
Gameplay is dependent upon written orders that can be lost or only partially interpretted.
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Then, there's 
THIS is a "commoner's" misperception, that "We the People" FIRST introduced the 'concept', when clearly "Kingmaker" ought to HOLD that distinction! Where else did that evolve from? What with its many differing types of 'cards', and even having several "decks" for such! There is probably MORE variety from that alone, than what you HAVE with the formerly "proclaimed" 'one'!
