The historical pleasures of playing wargames

We've talked about the dual appeal of wargames, as both games and explorations of history, in both the I've Been Diced! podcast and the blog. Here's another great example by Bruce Geryk from another blog, where he explains how he fell in love with an historical Advanced Squad Leader module about an obscure battle on the Eastern Front.

Excellent series about War In The East

If you're a wargamer, you should read Bruce Geryk's blog posts about War In The East, the PC Monsterspiel about the Eastern Front in WWII. War In The East isn't cheap – at $80, it's about as expensive as the typical Fantasy Flight game – so you can use Geryk's posts to decide whether it's the game for you. He also uses the occasion to muse about wargaming in general. How important are the details? Do wargames build credible narratives? What should games help you visualize? What assumptions do we make that perhaps we shouldn't?