If a troop was knocked over, it was considered a casualty.Īs you can imagine, the scale needed to shoot and play “Little Wars” took up quite a lot of space, and he had entire rooms dedicated to the game, or they had to play outside on the lawn. Instead of dice, Wells used miniature cannons that would fire at miniature troops. Wells later took these designs and created one of the first modern-day miniature wargames.
This was purely a teaching tool and not for commercial or military use. This first version of a wargame was like an elaborate/expanded version of chess. Some of the earliest credited examples come from Prussia by a man named Johann Christian Ludwig Hellwig (1780s).įor you history buffs out there, you’ll notice that Prussia no longer exists and is modern-day Germany (which is still known for developing highly-complex and enjoyable board games). Wargames were originally a teaching tool to educate young men on the principles of war. If you’re not interested or already have a firm idea of what a wargame is you can jump right into the list here. What is a wargame? Is any game with a war theme a wargame? Does it just require conflict and head-to-head battle to be a wargame? What are the defining characteristics?
Before we get into this list, let’s talk about definitions.