Simple rules, easily learned in a brief period of time. Playable in one sitting usually. Often with nice bits, using plastic miniature figures (but often with cardboard counters), but fewer pieces compared to "serious wargames". Also with mounted boards. These games are usually more in the ilk of German/Euro games, although that quality of deep strategic gameplay can be missing, these games being more hit or miss in that regard. The historical situation will be very abstracted - the emphasis on "simulation" is not there. That's the trade-off for simplicity and quick play. These games are more likely to be balanced, giving all players of equal skill a fair chance to win. However, these games are also more likely to have elements of luck built into the mechanics. The last two points going hand-in-hand in some cases, but not necessarily. This group of games is more likely to contain multi-player games (3 or more).

http://www.avalonhill.com/default.asp?x=games
http://www.eaglegames.net
http://www.btinternet.com/~norm.smith/games.html (some of these are out of print (OOP) and a couple are somewhat "consimy")
http://www.wargamer.com/axisandallies/OtherBoardGames
http://www.wargamer.com/axisandallies
http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/kulkmann/mb.htm
http://ucsu.colorado.edu/~wyn/gamemaster/ (these are OOP - but some worth finding)

As far as I'm concerned, Risk does not fit into this category. It's just too simple and abstracted to be much of a historical game. But that's not to criticize games like Risk or Stratego as games to play for fun. They're just not really historical - they only intend to give a historical feel in theme. I would lump these in with Monopoly when categorizing. But I would say Risk is a good first step to use to introduce the younger kids in your family to wargaming.

Here's some more info about "Euro style wargames". (In general, Boulder is a great way to buy games on-line - not to mention this nice newsletter.) http://www.bouldergames.com/gamenotes _5.html http://www.bouldergames.com/gamenotes_75.html

In the "simpler historical games" category, I recommend Battle Cry (about the American Civil War) by Hasbro. It has a nice combination of the best qualities of the simpler historical games and an accurate (although abstracted, therefore not precise) historical feel for the battles of the period. Battle Cry is a tactical game. (Each scenario included with the game depicts one battle.)

In fact GMT (www.gmtgames.com) will be releasing (hopefully) Battle Cry's big brother later this year. So GMT is branching out into the simpler game category. The new game is called Ancients BC - about the ancient period. It is anticipated to be a really terrific game - with all the nice elements of, but somewhat more complicated than, Battle Cry - but still in the simpler historical game category - not a consim.

To answer some of other questions; GMT does not employ a common gaming system. Some games use the same system, but many different systems are used.

If you want to start in the "serious wargame" category and with a GMT game, I'd recommend Wilderness War. This is based on similar "point-to-point" and "card-driven" mechanics as was used in Hannibal which you mentioned. I believe that Wilderness War (WW) is at the lower end of the scale in terms of complexity as compared to the other GMT games in the series. I've played Hannibal twice and WW once and if memory serves, they were similar in complexity level (although I did not absorb either one well enough in terms of situation and strategy to rate them as liked or disliked). WW might have a little less of a "consimy" feel compared to other games in the "serious wargames" category given its mechanics - I haven't really played anything hex based yet.

"Tactical" refers to smaller scale conflict. "Strategic" refers to larger scale conflict and hence has a different set of considerations for a commander. A game about the "Battle of the Bulge" would be tactical (or grand tactical?) and would be more concerned with moving "smaller" units (divisions/brigades/regiments) around the board in the best way to capture objectives like hills or towns. A game about WW2 would be strategic and might be more involved with things like supply routes and such, although capturing objectives are probably still important (just larger objectives) and with larger units (corps/armies/groups). Games like Squad Leader that go all the way down to the soldier or squad level, are tactical in the broadest sense, but referred to as skirmish(?) in gaming terms.

So this tactical vs. strategic issue has to do with the scale depicted in the particular game. It's a different set of categories as compared to complexity level.

Here's some hints about strategy that pertain to (tactical?) consims. http://www.grognard.com/zines/ph/p1103.html