Vassal and Steam
Games played using Vassal, a software for playing these by email, or on Steam when that is more convenient - live online, or solo.
1776
I was fortunate to find this opponent who showed me how to use Vassal for live online play. Along with using Discord voice channel, it's like having your opponent right there. We're both fans of the old 1776 game and so we've been playing through all the scenarios and campaigns. One thing we found in this Saratoga scenario shown is that if the Brits had followed their plan instead of each general doing their own thing, they could have wiped out most of the colonial troops in one campaign. In the pic the Brits followed the plan coming from New York City in the south, and down the valley from Canada from the north. By the time they've taken the two forts (in red rectangles with dots and 2x) the two British forces are huge, and all of the colonial resistance that was there has been wiped out with only a few scattered forces left outside of there.
Brotherhood and Unity
An interesting 3 player game started on Vassal live, it's about the Serbian war in the 1990's. The pic is of the starting set-up positions. There is an inset special sub-map for actions inside Sarajevo. The yellow units are the Serbians, the green are the Bosnians, and the blue are Croatian. The game is card-driven and has mechanics for forces coming in from without, UN intervention, consequences for certain aggressions, etc. It's been interesting playing the situation so far.
SPI games
SPI was one of the early companies that produced wargames in the 60s/70s and some classics!. There is a great site with info about them, files to play them and most can use Vassal. I've been fortunate to get to play in a few of their online tourneys - Musket and Pike last year, and PRESTAGS (covers from ancient period to Renaissance) and Arnhem (WW II the battle in the movie A Bridge Too Far) earlier this year. Unfortunately in between then and now, when I changed operating systems I must of lost pics I had from them, but had good games of those anyway, and met some great opponents!
Battle for Germany (SPI - 1975)
An interesting system for a situation that wouldn't be much of a challenge as a standard type of WW II wargame with the Allies vs Germany as it's set near the end of the war when the Allies are crushing Germany from both sides. So this is set up so it's one player playing Western Allies forces (green) and German forces (gray) facing Russia, and the other player taking the Russian forces (orange/red) plus the Germans facing the Western Allies. So the idea is to see which Allied side can make the most progress by a set number of turns. It's a very innovative and fun approach.
Twilight Struggle
This is a two player game on the Cold War between the US and USSR. Interestingly although usually classified along more niche wargames, this was the number one game for a long time on I think the most popular boardgame site Boardgame Geek where wargames are just a small part of the game population. It is a card driven game played in three phases - early war turns, mid war turns, and late war turns. In the early war turns, the cards tend to be better for the USSR with the US often hanging on til cards get better for them later in the game. I've thought the cards are especially interesting for how they represent historical events of the Cold War. This game has a big following and international tourneys for both individuals and teams! So of course it does have a Vassal mod for it, but here I'm using the Steam version as it's just easier to play. The first pic is of the early game where as mentioned the USSR tends to get off on a better start - the US is holding on okay in Western Europe, Japan, Israel, etc but the USSR has gained in eastern Europe, North Korea and gained inroads in the Middle East and Indian subcontinent. A little later in the second pic, the US has extended influence in western Europe a little more and in the Philippines as well as maintained a foothold in South Africa, but the USSR has started spreading influence through Africa and taken India! This is a game I often lose but always enjoy playing - it features a Space Race, an actual China card either and often both sides end up playing, many coups, etc.
Playing in-person opponents
Games against real players in person.
Battle for Normandy
I was fortunate to play this in-person with a group of four of us. I played the Commonwealth invaders - tan/brown units in the second and third pics. My biggest takeaway from the experience was the allies' task in reorganizing the units after their landings for supply and combined attacking purposes. Another realization was the value in allied heavy fire power in breakthroughs for advancement - the planes, the ships, and artillery.
Shores of Tripoli and WWII Commander Vol I: Battle of the Bulge
I just found these pics of a long ago time when I could talk my son into trying out some of these wargames with me (now he's too cool and much older and somewhere else now..). But we actually playtested a couple of games - Shores of Tripoli for Fort Circle Games (also Halls of Montezuma for them later but didn't find a pic), and Compass Games' WWII Commander Vol I - Battle of the Bulge. We always played lots of strategy games (with my daughter also) but wargames proper there were just a few others - Washington's War, Titan, as well as a few 'dudes on a map' type games like Axis and Allies, Viktory II, etc... Good times..
Rally the Troops
Games played on a site called Rally the Troops that enforces the rules similar to a chess server.
Hammer of the Scots
I was fortunate to find a good opponent for the Rally the Troops site. We've played a few different games on there, Hammer of the Scots most frequently. This is a 'block game' where you see the face of your blocks but only the blank backs of your opponents. In this game, we were even on the nobles count (victory determined by this) but a tie would go to my opponent as he still had Wallace on the map. So my only chance was building up forces to try to hit a weak spot which I tried to set up to do on the last play of the turn hoping to turn a noble to my side at the very end. But my opponent had drawn the Truce card which prevents attacks, so he just waited to play that on the last play. Which just goes to show 'the truce hurts'.
Crusader Rex
Another block game, this time about the crusades. Here the Saracens - green - were able to pull off a double attack thereby both taking Acre and cutting off the retreat path for the Crusader forces trying to retake Acre. Unable to either take Acre or retreat, Crusader forces suffered substantial losses.
Washington's War
Another game that plays really well on Rally the Troops. This one is of a card driven type where the playing of the cards really drives the game. Here the British (red) ran a successful southern strategy while still hanging on to key points in the north ending up holding 7 colonies to only 6 for the Americans (blue).
Rommel in the Desert
A block game on hex grid of WW II in North Africa with various scenarios. This is an observer's view of the 1941 scenario where the players are battling over Tobruk - Germans in green and British in brown. Blocks are revealed for a battle. I'm just learning this game but it seems to be a good look at the struggles the combatants had with juggling their available supplies with opportunities to take and hold ground.
Julius Caesar
Another block game on Rally the Troops - Julius Caesar - covers the Roman Civil War between Julius Caesar (red blocks) and Pompey (light tan blocks). In this game, Caesar attacked Pompey with his army in south Italy near Neopolis with substantially greater forces. But Pompey's navy surprised Caesar by amphibiously landing a surprise attack on Rome itself successfully taking it, leaving Caesar without a retreat route if he happened to not be able to finish off Pompey in time. Caesar did manage to defeat Pompey's force completely just in time (if not done in 3 rounds, attacker has to retreat which he would not be able to do in this case), thereby both saving his force and taking out Pompey! That lone Pompey's auxillary unit in Rome did last for 6 months though..
