[kriro]

Labyrinth is indeed brilliant. The best wargames recreate history and suck you in. Twilight Struggle is another excellent example. But that's also the highest level of complexity I'll tolerate. Friends of mine enjoy the super detailed a rule for everything games but I think those are better left for the digital realm...just too fiddly for my taste.

I'm an avid gamer (>150 games in my collection) but I only own three war games. Twilight Struggle, Napoleon's Triumph and Maria. I'd recommend all of them :)

Andean Abyss is on my to buy list.

Edit: Link to BGG, wargames only: http://boardgamegeek.com/wargames/browse/boardgame

[afterburner]

Napoleon's Triumph is a brilliant, but mind-bending design. Take a look at Guns of Gettysburg by the same guy. Also brilliant, and feels more intuitive. Longer, though, if you play out all three days. At least the board is smaller. :)

Twilight Struggle has a great period feel, although some of the mechanics are a bit clunky (realignments seem mostly unused, and yet the map is made for them). Haven't tried the COIN series (Labyrinth et al); the design seems really solid, although people should probably note the slant in the "politics" of the game. But that shouldn't bother too much even if you disagree on the emphasis, since gaming is all about what-if's anyways.

[roberthahn]

I'm not a war gamer (Steam is my favourite game these days) but I've played Maria and it is brilliant. I wish it could play within 90 minutes though.

Those of you who played Twilight Struggle might also know of a similar game called "1960: The Making of the President". First time I played that I was Kennedy and beat my opponent (Nixon). By one seat. Absolutely exciting!

[wlievens]

We had a tradition of playing 1960 on election night. Great game, and complex enough to play it as 2v2. With running mates.

[mcu]

A fantastic "1960: The Making of the President" video review http://www.shutupandsitdown.com/videos/v/review-1960-the-mak...

[david_parrott]

Sadly 1960 is out of print and pain to try and get a copy of.

[pessimizer]

I found the COIN games (or at least Andean Abyss and Cuba Libre) to be both easier and less Risk-esque than Twilight Struggle. They're not complicated like hex-and-counter wargames, and instead of having a million rules exceptions to maintain historicity, all of the history is in the cards, leaving the board and player options to be more clean, orthogonal and euro-esque.

[Tloewald]

The design certainly sounds elegant and intriguing. I'm going to have to buy one. I used to be an avid wargamer, but my tolerance for convoluted rules has been sapped (ASL was the end for me).

[cpeterso]

btw, Twilight Struggle is #1 game on Board Game Geek's overall game ranking (not just wargames):

http://boardgamegeek.com/browse/boardgame