Just finished listening to #120, and I had a few thoughts regarding Sam's answer to the "games for beginner wargamers" question.

I've been thinking about Memoir '44 as a good beginners game, not just for the obvious reasons that it has a military theme, it's easy to play, and has attractive board and bits. If you look at the concepts it contains, and use these as lessons in terminology, there are lots of possibilities... You've got line of sight, range attenuation, direct vs indirect fire, terrain effects, armor vs soft targets, overrun, command and control... Get these ideas planted, the next step can be Tide of Iron, then ASLSK or Combat Commander.

A new wargame publisher (to me, anyway) is Victory Point Games (victorypointgames.com). They've got several great entry-level historical wargames (my favorites: Drive on Metz and Assault on Sebastopol). They also offer a reprint of the SPI classic Strike Force One. All are great tools for introducing standard hex and chit concepts like "zone of control", "combat results table" and "terrain effects chart". They are also very inexpensive, and the shipping is among the fastest I've experienced. The rules are simple, the maps small and the counters few in number. The games play quickly, yet the two historicals cited above are tense, exciting and fun. One mistake and you're toast!