Wargaming generally comes in three main scales: tactical, operational, and strategic. There are no cut and dried rules about these scales, and sometimes they mean slightly different things to different people, but what they mainly refer to is how zoomed in are we on the action. That can be in both space and time, and usually both. It also refers to the size of the unit organizations.
Tactical scale is the most zoomed in. It can be dealing with units as small as squads or even single soldiers. If it uses a hex mapboard, the hexes may represent 20-100 metres across. And the time scale is often variable, but generally short. A turn might be 30 seconds, it might be 5 minutes.
The size of units can be bigger. There are platoon or company size units in these sorts of games as well. Think of games like Combat Commander or ASL, and then up to MMP’s The Greatest Day series. (MMP calls these games Grand Tactical, but it’s not a universally recognized distinction.)
One way to easily know if a game is tactical right away is if there is any ranged firing or LOS rules. If you can only hit a unit in the next hex, it’s probably not a tactical game. If you can hit a unit a few hexes away depending on line of sight, it’s going to be tactical.
In between tactical and operational games is a group that I sometimes call “battle games”. These can have a bit larger unit, maybe battalions or regiments. Infantry generally can only fire into an adjacent hex or maybe one extra, but artillery can still fire at range. There’s still a fair bit of maneuver available for the faster units. Turns might be 30-60 minutes. There are hundreds of ACW battle games at this scale, as well as Napoleonic games.
Moving up a bit in scale, we have operational games. One clue that you may be playing an operational game is that there are suddenly supply rules. Units can generally only fire into the next hex. And the units are larger, maybe brigades and divisions, even corps. The turns may be half day or full day or a week. The hexes represent a greater distance, maybe from 5 miles to 50 miles. It gets pretty fuzzy here as designers try to stretch either the time or the space. Games from MMP’s Operational Combat system fit here as do Mark Simonitch’s ZOC bond games. Generally these games encompass more than a single battle, but more like a campaign. The Battle of the Bulge is a good example. Though we call it a battle, it lasted for 5 weeks. Or these games can cover months.
The most zoomed out scale are strategic games. An easy rule of thumb to know if you’re playing a strategic game is to check and see if you’re playing an entire country. Strategic games often simulate a whole war or at least a complete theatre. Think of games like World in Flames, Third Reich, or Triumph and Tragedy. The unit scale is often full armies, the time is months or seasons, hexes can be 100 miles across or more. In addition, strategic games often have political elements not found in lower level games, and sometimes have options for production and technology.
Confusing matters, there are strategic games that have operational elements, or operational games that have tactical elements. And there’s not a sharp divide between classes, so with some games, it’s a little tricky to pigeon-hole its exact type. But I hope this gives you enough to have a better sense of what these scales are all about.
