War Room

War Room is the sort of game that occupies a table like a serious military operation and expects space, time and attention in return. In a five-player game, Germany opened with an invasion of Britain, largely abandoning the Eastern Front while America concentrated on the Pacific: an audacious departure from the usual course of the war.

Its core is written orders. Everyone commits their plans in secret, then all actions are resolved together at the end. The interesting decision is that you cannot simply adjust after seeing what the other side has done; you commit to a plan, then watch its consequences arrive.

The system is plainly built, and tested, to resist the quick blitz solution familiar from Axis & Allies and to show the long grind of the war instead. Oil management and pinned forces can turn an ambitious landing into a stationary disaster: here, the Russian fleet appearing in the Channel and careful preservation of oil stopped the Germans, while the Red Army came within sight of Berlin.

The game ended once an Allied victory was certain, but it did not feel premature; the plan had already been tested, worn down and broken in precisely the way the design intended. War Room is one of the rare great ones, provided you can give it the space and time it asks for; its simultaneous orders create a tension that very few war games manage.