War Games - Chris Strasser

Chris Strasser gave us an introduction to War Games:

Wargames (also called “conflict simulations”) range from the very abstract and simple, like Risk, through extremely complex, thoroughly researched simulations of specific battles, such as Gettysburg or the Battle of the Bulge.  

Because they have well-defined rules 

and use representations of the actual battlefield and units that fought,

wargames allow history buffs to play “what-if” with various historical and real-world situations.  

Unlike chess (but as in the real world), the results of one unit attacking another are subject to random results.  Thus, you can have Pickett’s charge succeeding.

Chris has been collecting and playing wargames since the 1970s.  He has a fairly extensive game collection and used several of them to explain the hobby to us.