_{Assistant Professor of Education Erik Ellis presents on wargame board games}

Future military leaders should train for war by playing tabletop wargames, Assistant Professor of Education Erik Ellis said during a lecture on Friday, Sept. 30.

The lecture, “Playing with History: Tabletop Wargames as an Historiographical Exercise,” took place in the Heritage Room as a part of the “Our Faculty, After Hours” series sponsored by Mossey Library. 

Tabletop wargaming, a genre of board games developed by the Prussian army in the 19th century, involves simulating historical or fictional battles with figurines. According to Ellis, wargaming was the most popular form of entertainment in the 1970s and has recently been experiencing a renaissance.

Ellis said he prefers to play tabletop wargames — physical board games — rather than computer wargames. Tabletop wargames may represent maps of Western Europe or a specific country overlaid with a hexagon grid. 

“People are unaware that there are still physical board games because most people think that it has all been transitioned to video games,” Ellis said. 

According to Ellis, rule books are often hundreds of pages, so it’s easier to play wargames on a computer. 

An intimate connection to the game process is lost when people play wargames on computers, however, Ellis said. A computer will be able to run the program and adjudicate the results without any levels of human error that could skew the interpretation.

“It was found that using computers produced a type of strategic thinking that was overly deterministic and not supple,” Ellis said. “Real life war isn’t deterministic. We want to have our future military leaders think through the process, look at a table, apply results, and work through the math.”  

Tabletop wargame designer and CIA analyst, Volko Ruhnke, started a wargame club at West Point, which cadets found to be helpful for learning strategy. 

“Ruhnke specifically works on counterinsurgency warfare strategy,” Ellis said. “For a long time, people didn’t know how to model counterinsurgency warfare because it doesn’t follow the same rules as conventional warfare. Ruhnke broke the code on that.”

Sophomore Maya Toman said she attended Ellis’ lecture because she knew that whatever topic he spoke about would be interesting. 

“I really like Dr. Ellis,” Toman said. “He comes to some of the Latin lunches that I attend and is fluent in Latin. I have almost never heard him speak English before. I came to this lecture because I knew he would be fascinating to listen to on whatever topic he spoke about.” 

Freshman David Cathel said he was surprised Ellis knows so much about wargames. 

“I would never have guessed that Dr. Ellis does all of this,” Cathel said. “I imagine wargames are one of those things where you either love it or hate it and have to try it first.”