What are the Top Solo Wargames? | New for 2026 | Best Solitaire Wargames? | Historical Board Games

0:00 Hi everybody, I'm Zel Blitz and welcome. In this video, I'm going to rank my top soliter board war games. Now, I made a video like this a couple of years ago, but I've played a lot of solitire board games since then, so it was time for an update. Couple of caveats about this list. This is based on my own playing, so not some external database or ranking of board games. These are based on the ones that I have played. So, a second caveat, this is very much a work in progress. I've played a lot of solitire board war games over the past couple years, but it feels like there are a lot more being published. I feel like I play one and there's two new ones. As such, there are some classics that I hope to play in the future and bring into this list and update it next year. Offhand, I can think of things like Western Front Ace, RAF, The Battle of Britain, Enemy Action, Ardens. All great games that I want to build into this list in the future. Before we start out on this journey, I want to mention one of our channel sponsors, Noble Knight Games, which is a retailer that specializes in new and used board war games. If you see some games in this video that you might like, they're all linked down below. And if you do use some of those links to purchase something, thank you so much because it does help out the channel a little bit. Before we start in our top 10, I want to quickly mention five honorable mentions that didn't quite make the list but have a very special place in my heart. Our first honorable mention is Sherman Leader from Danver Games. This is a tactical level game where you take charge of US forces in a role-playing like series of scenarios that embrace a whole campaign in World War II. It is a fantastically fun game.

1:24 It's here because this was the game that brought me back to board wargaming four years ago. It has a special place in my heart in addition to being a very good game that just missed our list this time. Second honorable mention is one of my favorite lunchtime solo games, Resist from Salt and Pepper Games. In this game, you take charge of some Spanish maki revolutionaries basically fighting against Franco after the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s. Why is this here? This is a fantastic chesslike puzzle type card game that plays in about 20 minutes. It's incredibly challenging. I love the depth of thought. I've very rarely, I think, played a game that gives me such a mental challenge in such a small time space. I really like Resist. You should check it out if you're looking for quick lunchtime solo games. The next two honorable mentions are related to each other. They go together. Both of these are two-player games that play incredibly well solitire, and so I want to include them on this list. The first is Gettsburg, the first day. This is designed by Steve Kerry. It covers the first day of the battle of Gettsburg. The second is a Most Fearful Sacrifice designed by Herman Lutman which covers the entire battle of Gettysburg. Why are these games here? Well, Gettsburg the first day is here as a representative of the Blind Swords system. This system was designed by Herman Lootman and it creates a tremendous amount of uncertainty by this system of chitpoles that you use to activate units. It works marvelously for solitire. And so Gettysburg the first day is here as a representative of any one of the 12

2:55 games currently in this revolution games series. They all play so well as a solitire experience. A Most Fearful Sacrifice took the Blind Sword system, built it into the Black Swan system, which is designed to handle battles of a larger scope. It plays equally well as a soliter experience because you're activating unit by units by card pulls. Both of these games are magnificent solitary experiences if you're comfortable with playing both sides and shifting back and forth, but the uncertainty of activation, the way the games flow, and the fact that they're just great gameplay experiences, two-player games, too, makes these really good choices for solitire gamers. Last honorable mention is Aces of Valor from Legion War Games. This game is a game where you take charge of a squadron of planes in World War I and you fly them fly them through a series of missions. Uh why is it here as an honorable mention? This might be one of my favorite beer and pretzels games.

3:49 There isn't. So a lot of these solitire experiences uh generate narrative. They can be roughly called narrative generators. Uh and some of them don't give you a lot of choices. Aces of Valor, to be fair, doesn't give you a lot of choices as to the outcomes of what's happening in certain stages. So a lot of the times you feel like you're along for the ride, but it's here because it tells a marvelous story. And so if you're in the mood for just relaxing, you don't want to think that deeply, maybe you've had a long day, but you want to play a board game, something that's a lot of fun, Aces of Valor spins amazing stories, more so than almost any board war game I've played. It's got that one more mission type of feel to it. There have been many nights where I've stayed up playing well later than I wanted to because it's like, well, I want to find out what's going to happen to the squadron. I want to find out what's going to happen to this pilot.

4:39 So, it's an incredible beer and pretzels story gener soliter game that's very light on decision-making, but I think that's its strength in this case. If you're looking for that type of game, I recommend Aces of Valor. It's a ton of fun. And now, time for our top 10. Let's start with game number 10, Gettysburg, A Time from Heroes from Worthington Publishing. Yes, another Gettsburg game. Our third one, but this is a two-player game. Yes, but I'll explain why it's here in a minute. This is a two-player game. It's block- based. It plays in under two hours. It's got a manageable rule set. Very solid and strong two-player experience. Very much enjoyed the time I've played with this one because it gives you there's a certain amount of alternate history here because the leaders could show up in any order. So, it's not necessarily a simulation of Gettysburg as it is a very strong game about Gettysburg, which gives the game a lot of replayability because every game's going to play out slightly differently. There's a lot there's some dice chucking for combat. So, there is an element of luck in here, but it's a fun single evening game that throws good mental challenges at you as the two-player game. Now, why is it here on the soliter list? There's a solitude soliter mode developed for the game as well. A lot of two-player games have a soliter mode and it feels tacked on like the designer was asked to add it and they added it at the last minute and it kind of works as solitaer. That is not the case with Gettsburg for a time a time for heroes. It's using the same rule set as the two-player game, but there is a a system that works for the bot that's very easy to manage and yet it makes some significant changes to the aggressiveness or the cautious nature of

6:10 different leaders that you be playing against. You can play either the Union forces or the Confederate forces in the soliter mode. It gives you a good challenge and it's a it's equally as fun to the two-player game. I've greatly enjoyed this game as a two-player game. I've also had a lot of fun playing this game as a soliter experience this year. Game number 10 on our list, Gettsburg, A Time for Heroes from Warthingington Public. Game number nine on the list. If you've been watching the channel for the past few months, you know this one's going to be here, right? British Tank Ace, 1940 to 1945. In this game, you take charge of a British tank at the beginning of World War II, either in North Africa. You can also start in Italy or in Western Europe a after the D-Day invasions and you're basically going through in a series of missions like some of the submarine games that we talked about on the channel where you're going to have a tank. The mission's like 15 20 minutes. You might survive, you might not. You might blow something up.

7:05 You might get wounded. You might get killed and end the campaign. You don't quite know what's going to happen. But the story of your tank as it goes through its missions and plays through its campaign is a fantastic narrative experience. Um, I'm about halfway through, well maybe you never know. Your next mission can always be your last in these things, right? But I've currently got a series on the channel where we're playing through the North African campaign with this game. Upgraded now to a Matilda tank. We've lost our first crew. Almost died when our previous tank got blown up. But it creates great stories. And this one I feel like too has a, you know, part of it is luck whether you succeed or fail. Absolutely. But this one do does too. I think it has a a good amount of decisions that are impacting what happens in the battle where you're trying to reduce the odds you're going to die, increase the odds you're going to succeed. I've had a lot of fun playing this one. I really like these narrative gameplay experiences and I think British Tank Ace um has been a fun just a really positive experience in this category for me um over the past few years. So, British Tank Ace game number nine in my top soliter war game.

8:10 Game number eight on the list is another narrative spinner. I I enjoy these games a lot. I especially enjoy sometimes the bite-sized nature of the missions because a lot of evenings you just don't have a lot of time to play, but you can say, "Oh, I can play a 20-minute mission here." And you make progress with your game. So, this one, as some people may have guessed, Raiders of the Deep: Yubot of the Great War, 1914 to 1918. In this game, very much like British Tank Ace, where you take charge of a tank and go through a series of missions. This one, you take charge of a yubot, but it's World War I. And one of the fun things about this game in particular, I think, is the historical research that's been put into this game. You're starting out in the era when there were no depth chargers. And there also restrictions for a large part of World War I where you have special ways that you have to interact with the merchant ships. You can't just go up and attack them cold-blooded. So, this game captures a lot of the historical evolution of submarine warfare in the early days of World War I. And if you continue all the way through, you can make it to 1918.

9:08 You can play campaigns in various areas of World War I. Some of them are easier, some of them are harder. I had a lot of fun with this one. We played a campaign and a series on the channel with this one. Didn't make it all the way through. That's a spoiler, yes, but I really enjoyed my time with this game. I think it's one of the top one of the better narrative generator solo games in the in the in the genre today. So, Raiders of the Deep, Ubot of the Great War from Compass Games. Game number seven keeps us in the water and keeps us focused on submarines. Speaking of subs, if you do like the content on this channel, clicking the subscription button down below would be greatly appreciated and you won't miss any future content. But I digress. Game number seven, Wolfpack from GMT Games. Now, just by the weight of the game, you can tell that this is a very different experience than the narrative generator focused games of Raiders of the Deep and things like British Tankase. Um, oftentimes when I post those videos, people will say, "Well, how much do your decisions impact the outcome of the game?" I feel like there's a good amount of impact on those games, but there is a big element of luck. This game, Wolfpack, puts you in charge of a small pack of yubot in World War II, and the mission is completely different experience. In Raiders of the Deep, a mission's 10, 15 minutes. In Wolfpack, it could be 2, three hours to play through one mission. There is an entire campaign sequence built into this. This is a game that celebrates that mission aspect and puts you in charge of so many more decisions. How you're going to hunt the convoy. You've got the whole convoy spread out on the table in front of you.

10:40 How you're going to attack, how you're going to coordinate for yubot, what you're going to do when escorts show up. It is a much more involved, deep, and brilliantly executed simulator of the Wolfpack experience in World War II. I've had a ton of fun playing this one. It does take more of a commitment both to learn and to play because the campaigns are going to be longer. Each mission is quite involved. But if you are willing to put in the investment of time in this one, Wolfpack is a fantastic solitire experience. Game number seven on our list. Game number six on the list of top soliter games is a game that surprised me. I had modest expectations for this game and fair to say that the game play completely blew me away. Uh, game number six is Trench Raid from Compass Games.

11:26 In this game, you take charge of a small patrol of 10 soldiers, British soldiers in World War I, and you go out into no man's land, and you have various missions, and all these missions are strung together in a campaign. It's much like the same formula of British Tank Ace and the Raiders of the Deep, but the missions are more involved. They're generally quite a bit longer, and you've got a lot more decisions, and a lot more stuff can happen on these missions. You string those together into a series of missions that build up a campaign. Why is this game here? The stories that this game tells are just amazing. I I mean, and you there is a lot of luck here, too, right? I mean, artillery killed the most soldiers in World War I. It's in this game, right? When you get hit by artillery, it's good night. I mean, it really can throw your whole campaign sideways. You will be singing praises if you can make it through an artillery barrage in this game. And it can happen, but you don't. You never know what's going to happen. You'll have one mission, it'll be a complete cakewalk where everything goes perfectly well, and then you have another mission where two people make it through, five people get lost, three people get wounded, and you're like, "Well, there goes my patrol." And you've got a whole bunch of replacements to go forward on that. But in the course of these different patrols and missions that your troops are going to go, you get a sense for the horror and the tragedy of World War I trench warfare and what these soldiers live through. And yet at the same time, it's just an amazing narrative that this game builds. I really enjoy this game. It's

12:59 so far exceeded the modest expectations that I have. I'm so happy to put it in this list. And if you're interested in this type of narrative experience and you're interested in learning about World War I, I think you can't go wrong with this game. Game number six on the list, Trench Raid from Compass Games. Game number five keeps us in this subgenre of solitire war games that spin narratives. And there's a a second pun with that as well, but The Hunters from GMT Games. Now, I mentioned this game in the world top World War II board game video I just made. I think so highly of this game. This was my introduction to this narrative generator type experience of solo game. And the hunters is a perfect example of that. In this game, of course, you take charge of a singular yubot like Raiders of the Deep. It's when World War I. This is that same experience in World War II, but it takes you up through 1943 before things became really dark for the Yubot. There is a game sequel called The Hunted that will allow you continue to continue with your yubot to see if you can make it through the end of the war, but 1943 on for the Yubot was a particularly brutal time.

14:03 This game is a lot more playable and a lot more survivable than the hunt it is. But at its heart, you're again you're in charge of a singular yubot, which I think is just a perfect environment for these types of soliter games because it focuses gameplay. Missions again take about 10, 15, 20 minutes to play through. fun decisions as you decide whether to attack or not attack, whether engage, whether to dive, to deep dive, how you're going to survive, what risks are you going to type type, what risks are you going to take as you're playing through this. Great stories, too. I mean, the tension as you're hunting ships and trying to rack up tonnage and then as your campaign builds and builds and you get more experience and your crew builds up and you're going through this campaign hoping, wow, can we finally make it through this campaign with the Yubot? And then of course it's very likely that somewhere along the way that something goes sideways because it is hard to survive in this game. But it is a marvelous journey as you play this.

14:59 The Hunters game number five on our top solo games. A fantastic narrative generation experience with some good decisions in it as well. Really like this one. Game number four in the list is a survivor from the previous top soliter game war games video that I made a couple of years ago. I think it's one of the most underrated war games in our hobby, especially as a solo game by Stealth and Sea from Danver Games. Now, what is this game? You take charge of Italian frogmen who literally would ride on torpedoes into British and Allied harbors in North Africa, in the Mediterranean in World War II, and try to blow up British ships. This is an entire aspect of World War II history that I knew nothing about as I got into this game. The historical research backing up this game. You're using the actual names of the fraudmen that went on these missions in World War II. The this game captures their bravery, their heroism, the absolute audacity of this plan, and the fact that historically they had some success. And each one of the scenarios in the game is based on an actual mission that these frog men went on in World War II. Talk about tension and drama. And you're going to lose a frogman. These guys died all the time or they got captured. Things went horribly wrong. These things these sub well torpedoes barely worked. And and so the the story this tells in each mission and

16:32 they are all linked together into a campaign experience. That's definitely the way I would recommend playing this one is you want to play the historical campaign and see if you can do better than history. This this is such a good game. The good thing is it's been out of print for a while. I saw it currently being tacked on to a DVG Kickstarter. So, I'm guessing that pretty soon this one's going to be back available for direct purchase so you won't have to hunt it down on the secondary market. More people should know about this game. I can't say enough positive things about it by Stealth and Sea from Danver Games. If you like soliter games and you like drama and tension and you want to learn about an entirely different aspect of World War II that you might not know very much about by Stealth and Sea cannot be matched. This is a great game. Game number three on our list is I think the most creative soliter game I've run across in the past couple years. There are so many pieces to this but let me show it first. Purple Haze from Fallank.

17:28 So, in this game, it's set in Vietnam, as you can imagine by the title. You take charge of a squad of US soldiers, and they go on a wide range of missions. There are nine missions in the entire campaign. All these missions are linked together. Now, why is this here? This has so many subg genres of board games all mashed into one experience, and it just works. Part of it is a role- playinging game because your soldiers are going to get skills and experience, and some of them are going to die. They're going to get wounded. They're going to be out of action. They're going to get replaced. But the story of each one of these soldiers in your campaign is its own element. So, you've got that story element. You've got the role playinging game element of these the development of your soldiers and the the missions they go through, the equipment they have, and all the different aspects of their history as they go through the game. It's also a tactical combat game because there are points in the game where you're just going to run into enemy forces. You're going to have a firefight. You're hoping your best to survive. They're brief. They're fast like they were in Vietnam and some of your soldiers are going to get wounded and they get killed, but you're hoping that you come out of it successful and it's chaotic and wild, which captures, I think, a lot of the combat element of patrol combat in Vietnam. The third element of this game is that it's very much a choose your own adventure. Each one of the missions in the game has its own little booklet and you're going to be reading through this booklet and making decisions to the best of your ability. The abil the squad's abilities and your soldiers ability also has an impact on how those decisions turn out.

19:00 There is definitely element an element of luck in here. And I mean that in a good way because you can't necessarily control the outcome of the missions just like soldiers in Vietnam couldn't control a lot of the circumstances that were happening around them. So, you would think a game that has the set of missions that this does that once you play through the campaign, it's like, well, I'm kind of done with it. I've seen everything. But each mission can play out so differently each time. And as you string these together, your campaign of missions as you take this patrol through its history in in Vietnam can play out so differently each time. Some patrols are going to go amazingly well. Some patrols be it doesn't even feel like the same patrol. The outcomes can be wildly different. You've got a lot of different choices to make. So, the choose your own adventure element of this game is so thoughtful and so well implemented. This is a masterful game that combines all of those genres into amazing storytelling experience that is just so much fun to go through and you're also forced to go through and make some really interesting, challenging, and fun decisions as you play this game. This is a great game. I mean, if you like board games and you like solitire games and you want to play something that's probably unlike something you've played before that just works as a whole, Purple Haze, you should definitely check it out. I've really enjoyed this one.

20:17 I am so happy to be creating this new version of Top Soliter Board War Games because game number two on the list is a game that I've wanted to talk about for quite a while and I think more people should know about it. So, Save South Vietnam from Fortress Games. Now, what is this game? Well, Purple Haze is about Vietnam, but it's tactical. And a lot of soliter games focus on that tactical level experience. South Vietnam is you play the entire Vietnamese war, and you're playing it from the US perspect US and South Vietnamese perspective. In the beginning of the war, you're trying to as quickly as you can build up US forces to fight back the North Vietnamese side in the early part of the war. Then, as the US forces build up and the presence gets stronger, you've got a pretty good fighting force. Then the game changes.

21:02 the campaign changes because now public sentiment is asking for the US forces to be pulled out. You've got to withdraw your US forces and you've got to build up your South Vietnamese forces to enable them to be able to stand on their own to face the North Vietnamese when the US forces are gone. So this game has this evolution of no presence to US presence to no US presence, South Vietnamese presence that you're trying to build up this entire army, the South Vietnamese army as you're playing through the game, trying to stem back it. So many times everything looks desperate and you're just hanging on by the skin of your teeth. You're about to lose the entire Vietnamese war and then hopefully you can make some decisions and shift some forces and things work out okay. The challenge here, the decisions here that you're faced as you're fighting this campaign are incredibly fun and challenging to put a system like this in place. Again, a lot of tactical games work really really well at the the tactical level. At the strategic and operational level, I think this type of game is much rarer. and that it's executed so brilliantly and that it's executed through all the stages that the game has inside it is such a magnificent achievement that each of these stages is balanced out so it all works together as a whole means that as you're playing this long game this is like a 4-hour game to go through the entire campaign as you're playing through it it never gets repetitious because you're going to go about an hour hour and a half and now you've got to start withdrawing the US forces an hour and a half later the US forces are

22:32 withdrawn and now the South Vietnamese army has to stand on its own. So, each of these stages is unique. It presents unique challenges and it has just such a nice game flow over what is a long experience. I thought it was going to get tedious. I was always absolutely riveted in terms of trying to win the campaign. This is a wonderfully fun game. More people should know about it. If you like solitire games, you owe it yourself to check out Save South Vietnam from Fortress Games. Game number one might be a little bit melodramatic because it was game number one in the previous top soliter board war games video that I made. Some of you may know where we're going with this. And if you watch the top World War II board games video that I just made, you know the answer. D-Day at Omaha Beach. I have played dozens and dozens of soliter games since I made the last version of top soliter board war games. This is still the king. So, uh, if you're not familiar, if you haven't seen the previous video and you're and you're not familiar with what D-Day at Omaha Beach is, this is one of, uh, three games designed by John Butterfield. All of these D-Day games are good, by the way.

23:33 U by decision games where you are in charge of the US forces landing on Omaha Beach on D-Day and the subsequent fighting up through uh, and past the beach head to try to establish your beach head deeper off the beaches themselves. this game. I think great soliter games and great games in general are games that are fun to lose. Uh, and by fun, I mean, there's a lot of different definitions of fun, and it is, yes, it's an ambiguous term, but I think it does apply here in that this game, your your tanks are going to get wiped out in the beginning. Your troops are going to drift from one beach to another. You're you're going to have entire segments of your offens's forces get wiped out. You're managing a catastrophe. This game captures that chaos of the initial beach landings at Omaha Beach. And somehow as you look at this situation, you think, "Okay, well, maybe I can go here and do that and take this point and go here and do that and take this point." You're managing your resources, trying to contain casualties and move off those beaches and up and inland. You will lose at this game. You can play this game repetitively and repetitively and lose.

24:39 But each time you play, you play, you learn something new and you come back with more experience and more tools to get just a little bit further the next game. The other thing about this game that I think makes it so brilliant in its category is that most soliter games, you're playing against a set system. So the opponent's actions are to a certain degree understood and you're trying to figure out how you can break that system or master that system with your forces to be able to win the game. When you play this game, the way the German forces activate and move and reinforce feels vibrant. It feels alive. It feels like you're playing an actual and important an opponent who is very good at what they're doing. It's devious. It will show up in exactly the place you don't want them to show up. You'll clear something out and if you leave it unguarded, the Germans are going to come back in there and you're like, "Oh man, now we got to take it again." You're managing your casualties. It feels alive. It feels to me that it drops you right in this D-Day situation as a commander of these forces trying to move your forces forward. On so many levels, this is a magnificent achievement. The mental challenges the game throws at you are fantastic. The vibrancy and the aliveness of the game is wonderful. the sense of history both from an emotional frustration perspective as you deal with all the losses and chaos and try to move forward as well as the historical accuracy of what's going on with the US forces as they move inland is fantastic.

26:08 The stories that the game generates are outstanding. I cannot say enough good things about D-Day at Omaha Beach. Still the king of my top solitire war games list. D-Day at Omaha Beach. I'm looking forward to play more games to see if something can knock this one off. So, there we have it. My top soliter board war games. What are your top soliter board war games? Which games do you agree with? Which ones do you feel shouldn't be on the list? I'd be curious to hear your thoughts down in the comments below. If you have enjoyed this video and would like to see a full playthrough of Save Salt Vietnam, I've got it up here and linked. You can check that out. Thanks for watching everybody. Have a great day.