World War I usually takes a backseat to other eras in wargaming, which has always struck me as a missed opportunity. The Great War produces some of the most compelling solo experiences available — the tension, the tragedy, and the tactical problems that have no clean answers. In this countdown I run through my six favorite solitaire WWI games, the ones that keep earning a spot on the table.
Why the Great War rewards solo play
The range on offer is wider than people expect. You can spend an hour on a nerve-shredding trench raid, hunt convoys in the cold Atlantic, or fly the sweeping aerial campaigns over the Western Front. Some of these are quick, self-contained puzzles; others are career-spanning narratives where you sweat every replacement and every roll on the wound table. That spread — from tight one-session games to long, personal campaigns — is exactly why the era suits solitaire so well.
I’m not going to spoil the order here — the full ranking, with what each game does well and who it’s for, is in the video. If you’ve been sleeping on WWI as a solo subject, start with number one and work backwards; I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. And if your own list looks different, that’s half the fun — tell me what I got wrong.
Want more of the era? There’s a longer look at the period on the site in In the Trenches: Devil Dogs.
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