Wargaming Research: Solo War & Historical Gaming 2025 — Last Call!

Armchair Dragoons PAO, 11 September 2025

For the past few years, we’ve partnered with Beyond Solitaire for a short survey about your solo wargaming preferences.  Our third annual survey is closing in on its 15 September end date, so this is our reminder to everyone to make sure you have your say!

In the words of Liz from Beyond Solitaire

Many of us are omnigamers who enjoy a wide range of solo games, but I think solo historical and wargames don’t get as much love as they deserve. Every year, I love commenting on the People’s Choice Top 200 list, but also spend a lot of time complaining about how my favorite games keep falling further down the list, and further out of the public eye.

Reminders of Some Key Things With the Survey

Terminology

“Historical” is a term we have deliberately chosen to allow a wide array of games to be considered. Your nominees can be traditional wargames, conflict simulations, or games that actively engage with history in some way, but  game with a pasted-on historical theme should not be included here.

Is Twilight Struggle a wargame? Rome IInc? Labyrinth? I, Napoleon? Race to the Rhine? Stratego? The Last Crusade CCG? The Mission? Red Flag Over Paris? Endurance? Churchill? The British Way?
We’re not going to try to make that distinction for you.
If it’s a wargame or a conflict simulation to you then it’s fair game for this survey, and we’re looking forward to seeing what you have to say!

Data Input / BGG Links

Because we know that cutting & pasting the links from BGG can be a headache, especially on a mobile phone/tablet, we tried a couple of different options to integrate with datasets that would allow some type-ahead functionality, but could not get them working in time for this year’s survey.  We know that the BGG links are an imperfect solution for data input, but they’re the best way we have to keep the data consistent across all responses.

Sci-fi & Fantasy Games

Also note that while a lot of us enjoy sci-fi/fantasy wargames, we’re aiming for historical options here, so while Burning Banners and SpaceCorp and all manner of Star Trek and Star Wars games are plenty of fun, they’re really outside the scope of what we’re after here with the historical-focused games.

Solitaire?  Solo?  What About Multi-Handed?

To clarify what we mean by “solo” or “solitaire” here’s our standard boilerplate:

By “solo games,” we truly mean games that you enjoy on your own. No official solo mode is required—wargamers commonly play multiple sides against each other. Just make sure that if you put a game on your ballot, you do it because you actually enjoy playing it by yourself.

If you want to participate, please fill out the Google Form – either the embed below or at this link. We will be leaving it open through Noon EDT on September 15, 2025. Once we have closed the form, we will crunch the data, tally the results, and publish this year’s list for everyone to enjoy.

Thanks for joining us on this project, and happy gaming!

2025 Solo & Solitaire Wargaming & Historical Gaming Survey Results
ANNOUNCEMENT | MASTER LIST | DATA DIVING | BEYOND SOLITAIRE YOUTUBE DISCUSSION
BGG GEEKLIST | MENTIONED IN DISPATCHES EPISODE | MORE DATA DIVING

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