Wargames Trivia Quiz

Answer: Stratego

"Stratego" is a game in which two opposing armies, red and blue, face each other on a game board. In the middle of the board are two lakes that help divide the opponents and funnel the action. The pieces have varying ranks with the lower number being the higher ranked piece. Neither player can see what his opponent's pieces are until he attacks them then they are revealed.

The lower number captures the higher number. The goal is to capture your opponent's flag. We spent hours and hours playing this game.

Answer: Risk

"Risk" is a game in which each player attempts to conquer the world. Each player is given a certain number of armies to begin the game based on the number of players. They then take turns picking countries and placing armies one at a time until each player has all of their armies on the board. Combat takes place when one player's armies from one of his territories attack another player's territory. Dice are rolled and the high number wins.

The number of dice rolled depends on the number of armies a player has involved in that battle.

The game is highly strategic in how you allot your armies and what areas you try to control. Another game we loved to play.

Answer: Gettysburg

This was one of my first and favorite wargames. The original game had a map of Gettysburg that was divided into squares, rather than hexagons as became standard later on. Each player had units equal to a division in size that they moved onto the map according to the historic order of battle. Combat took place when one or more units attacked an enemy unit(s). Attacking from the side or back and in large numbers favored the offensive player and entrenching, especially on a hill, favored the defenders. There was a combat results table to determine the outcome.

This game actually taught me about the history of the battle and I used it in a class presentation in my history class.

Answer: 1776

"1776" was a campaign style game that featured all 13 colonies and Canada. You could either fight the whole Revolutionary War or four different campaigns that featured only select parts of the greater war. Each side had units that could be piled on top of each other to increase their strength. There were also tactical cards that each player used to either decide how they would be attacking or defending in each battle. Dice were rolled to determine the outcome. The map used hexagons to enable movement and position.

As I played the game I could not help but be struck by the military superiority of the British and amazed that they lost the war. If the war had been fought in a vacuum that only considered the military aspects, there is no way they would have lost.

Answer: Squad Leader

"Squad Leader" was a revelation to us and a highly complex game. It was one of the first games to bring combat down to such a small unit level and made the tactical aspects of warfare far more compelling. The forerunner "Panzer Leader" had used platoon-sized units but "Squad Leader" was the first to use squad-sized in the Avalon Hill universe. The hexagons were also far smaller in scope covering only 40 meters where "PL" covered 250 meters. Everything in the game sought to be historically accurate.

The one thing that struck me when we played this game was the relative weakness of American squads when compared to units of other countries, particularly the Germans. I had grown up believing the American military was far superior to any other country and yet here I had a historically accurate game challenging those assumptions. It certainly was an eye-opening experience.

Answer: Air Assault of Crete

"Air Assault of Crete" was based on the actual German invasion of Crete. It included a bonus game for an invasion of Malta that Germany had considered but called off after the casualties suffered on Crete. Avalon Hill released the game in 1977, the same year as "Squad Leader".

The play and rules were very similar. Again this game amazed me with the historic strength of the German units when compared to the British units. How history differed from what a game that only considers the military aspects of a conflict produces was quite remarkable.

Answer: Blitzkrieg

"Blitzkrieg" was first released by Avalon Hill in 1965. Although the word blitzkrieg became synonymous with the German offensive philosophy, this game was not a real reflection of blitzkrieg during WWII. The game pitted two opponents against each other in a fictional battle that was not based on any historic events.

The technology of the armies however was WWII technology. The game used a hexagonal map and pitted two relatively equal armies against each other and had several neutral countries.

Answer: Diplomacy

"Diplomacy" was initially released in 1954 by Games Research and then Avalon Hill. Avalon Hill marketed it as the favorite game of JFK and Kissinger. The game still has a large following and tournaments have been held since the '70s. Basically the game involves pre-WWI Europe and the relationships between the countries and empires that existed then.

The game does not follow the traditional rules of each player taking one turn but rather all players write down their moves secretly after a period of negotiation and then all is revealed at the same time.

The brute force of combat as found in most wargames is replaced with the need for social skills and relationships, diplomatic combat if you will. In both games, strategy is used in deploying the combat necessary to gain the goals desired.

Answer: Platoon

"Platoon" was marketed by Avalon Hill to introduce new players to the world of board wargames. It was very similar to "Squad Leader" but was set in Vietnam instead of WWII. The game was a two-player game. As with most Avalon Hill games it came with a basic version and a more advanced version. It also had rules in place to try to simulate the fog of war.

Answer: Anzio

"Anzio" was actually not just a representation of the Anzio Landings, but took into account the whole Italian Theater of WWII from late 1943 to the end of the war. It was a broader more strategic game than ones that would follow like "Squad Leader" (1977).

Although originally released in 1969, it was re-released in improved versions in 1971, 1974, and 1978. The attempts to play out very much within the same parameters as were historically accurate for the time so that each player is faced with the same situation as the real commanders faced.