Monster game

A monster game is a game that is either very large, very complex, or both. One criterion sometimes adopted is the number of pieces; a game which puts greater than 1000 counters into play at once may be considered to be a monster game. This classification can technically be applied to any board game, but most commonly refers to the kind of non-abstract wargames in which a large amount of time is needed to play each turn as a result of a relatively high commitment to period accurate military realism. Drang Nach Osten and its companion, Unentschieden led to the Europa Series games, a giant WWII game.

Games that are considered monster games include:

Wargame Company Year Counters Playing time (hours) Description
Drang nach Osten! (DNO) GDW 1973 1,792 200 A game to cover Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of Russia.
Europa series GDW, GRD, Mill Creek Ventures and Historical Military Services (HMS) 1973- A series containing 17 war games (the first being Drang nach Osten!), which can be combined, most games classified as monster games.
La Bataille de la Moscowa GDW 1975 1,440 16 A simulation game of the Battle of Borodino. It is both complex and large.
War in Europe SPI 1976 3,600 6 A simulation game of the war in Europe. This game is a combination of War in the East and War in the West with additional rules and mechanics.
Highway to the Reich SPI 1976 2,400 6 The game is set during the Second World War, covering ten days of Operation Market-Garden, from 17 to 26 September 1944, with two hours per turn.
War Between the States 1861–1865 SPI 1977 (1st edition) 2004 (2nd edition) 1,400 6 A game that covers the entire American Civil War, the major theaters of operation from Galveston, Texas, to St. Joseph, Missouri, and from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Jacksonville, Florida.
Empyrean Challenge Superior Simulations 1978 A science fiction play-by-mail (PBM) game described by a reviewer in 1988 as "the most complex game system on Earth". Turn results sent from the company to the player could be up to 1,000 pages in length.
War in the Pacific SPI 1978 3,200 6 A simulation game of the War in the Pacific with 7 maps.
The Longest Day Avalon Hill 1979 2,603 90 Mammoth Operational wargame of the WWII Normandy Campaign, JUN-AUG 1944
The Campaign for North Africa SPI 1979 1,600 1,000 A game about the North African campaign of World War II
Lords of the Earth Thomas Harlan 1983 25 years A PBM game involving expansion by conquest lasting about 25 years per game.
Pacific War Victory Games/GMT Games 1985 > 2000 1–100 A grand strategy hex and counter WW 2 of the entire Pacific Theater of Operations
The Great War in Europe XTR Corp 1995 1,200 6 A simulation game of the first world war in Europe.
D.A.K. The Gamers 1997 1,540 6 A game that covers the entire North African campaign at the regimental level
Case Blue The Gamers 2007 3,500 (2,660 unit counters and 840 marker counters) 375 A game that covers both the Axis advance (between 1941 and 1942) as well as the Soviet counterattacks (Nov 42 to Jan 43) and the German counteroffensive at Kharkov (Feb-March 1943) including the Case Blue 1942 strategic summer offensive in southern Russia between 28 June and 24 November 1942, during World War II.
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