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!

I really want to try Waterloo 20 and/or Jena 20--they sound like interesting games and they're quick playing.

In an upcoming episode, I briefly mention A House Divided as a great "next step" wargame--it's got simple rules (the basic game clocks in at about 6 pages, I think) but it's got a *lot* of depth and subtlety. The advanced rules add more depth without being very complex.

Having not played A House Divided, I'll look forward to your segment!

It's *really* short, and has few details 'cause we wanted to cram a lot into the episode, but I'm happy to talk about the game if you want. It's a great game. The Phalanx version is gorgeous, but a bit pricey. The older versions (GDW ones), though, are fairly cheap on eBay.

Your post reminded me of the original Episode 0 in which Jason White gave his top 10 choices for a new wargamer to buy. Some may seem a bit odd, but there were good reasons for all of them (explained in the episode, which I can't seem to locate at the moment -- sorry). You can see the list in the right column of the page below:

http://www.thedicetower.com/thedicetower/index.php?page=game...

I do not know if MMP is still giving away copies of Target Arnhem, but that is a good (almost free) way to try out an intro wargame.

Do you know if you want tactical (squad) level, or a more strategic (bigger unit) level game?