I have Rule the Waves and it never struck me as “beer & pretzels”.
How about Battle of the Bulge and Drive on Moscow?
I’ve played Great Little Wargame on my iPhone. I second the ‘it’s ok’. Not Great, but certainy fairly decent.
Does the Close Combat series count? Not sure if it does as it’s real time. Unity of Command definitely counts. Yes, it has supply but the way it’s shown to the user means that even a child could understand it. I think you could sit down to someone and explain to them how the game plays in 5 minutes and they would be able to play fairly proficiently. You’re not going to do that with War in the East!
Another vote for Order of Battle.
Another game that I would like to suggest (with the caveat that it hasn’t aged well graphically) is SSG’s
Decisive Battles series. In particular Battles in Italy just really clicked for me. I would recommend this for someone who has felt that they’ve conquered the beer and pretzels realm and would like to try something a little more grognardy but aren’t ready to go full grog. Unfortunately the series is locked to a single screen resolution and looks much better on CRT monitors.
You folks need to continue pairing drink and attire recommendations with games otherwise I am at a loss as what to wear and my method of intoxication.
It might depend on the definition, whether you think B&P must be fast paced or not, light on the mechanics or not, asking a lot of thinking or not. Hell, to the person above you, it seems even Beer Drinking Elves Wars qualify as wargames (the heresy!).
Hearts of Iron IV would have to be the quintessential beer and pretzels wargame - you can drawing big arrows over the map and set up your entire Barbarossa invasion with a dozen clicks of the mouse.
As mentioned above, Order of Battle and Battle of the Bulge would get my votes as great, simple systems that aren’t too complicated and are fun to mess around with.
Hahahahah. Wait. You’re serious?
You might think it’s too hardcore to fit in the beer and pretzel category, but in the end all it really is, is a simple ‘push soldiers around on a map’ style game.
Uh…
Blood bowl 1 and 2?
Yes!4
I am hoping that the PC version of OGRE whenever it gets done will be decent. I think that would fit the Beer & Pretzels category.
Yep.
The quintessential B&P wargame.
Hearts of Iron series: not B&P. I mean, all wargames in the end are just pushing units around, right? :)
I guess beside length of play and rules density, I would add learning curve to my criteria.
Classic Battletech: B&P. Star Fleet Battles: B&P buried under kilometers of chrome.
[quote=“scharmers, post:33, topic:129853, full:true”]
Yep. [/quote]
How is this a wargame? I mean, I love the game, but I don’t see how they are wargames.
LOL, a game with 150 pages of rules is not B&P I’m.
Do the generals games not count here? Panzer General, etc?
Other than that, I’ve found it hard to land on good wargame experiences when sessions are less than a few hours. I’m going to look through some of these recomemndations.
People die, there are rules, it’s war.
They nail B&P precisely, but they’re long in the teeth. Panzer Corps is probably the way to go, these days.
Steel Panthers, when it first came out, was probably Grigsby’s most B&P design, ever. Its latest necrotic incarnations, fueled by the nightmares of billions of rivet-counters, aren’t.
I wish there was just a fixed-up version of SP1-- the basic game, bugs fixed, working in a modern OS, nothing else.
I was beginning to think I was crazy for suggesting Panzer Corps. Thanks for making me feel less nuts!
@scharmers I’m assuming sqad level is something below where you’re going, too, right? Like Close Combat, Company of Heroes, Codename: Panzers, Soldiers, or even Jagged Alliance?
A lot of the beer and pretzels types went the way of RTS to be honest, for better and for worse.
A lot of the XCOMs alikes – including the original XCOM - I would consider wargames. Nobody calls them that, because of the (assumed) stigma of being a wargame for nerds and not a “strategy game” for cool kids.
RTSs are not wargames IMO, except when they are. Close Combat: wargame. CoH: a damn fine RTS, but not a wargame. The Eugen stuff: makes me dizzy trying to categorize them.
I don’t know. I just consider a _war_game a B&P game when I can whip out the board, set up the pieces, and play through and be done with it in 30 minutes - 1.5 hours. Generally, shooting and casualties are involved.