I just want to be able to play a tabletop wargame without having to drop a small country's GDP on miniatures and hand paint a bunch of shit
The general trend I've seen in game shops is that they are all in on war hammer and wizards of the coast with a shelf or two for boxed tabletops. The owners tend to be super fans of one of the games and only begrudgingly supporting anything else and only then if a major publisher is putting in some promotion and prize support.
It'd be cool if there was like a universal program for playing tabletop on the internet with other people. I know tabletop sim exists but I don't think I'd need fancy graphics.
Roll20's pricing and stuff sucks though. I recommend Foundry to everyone who can afford it. 50 bucks once for one player in your group to share it with everyone, and the community is constantly pushing new systems and content.
From what I understand it's more functional for 5e and Pathfinder 2e than Roll20 and doesn't cost anywhere near as much as Fantasy Grounds.
There's loads dude, take a look. Hex and chit games are pretty niche - generally historical, and aimed at old dudes - but they're well regarded as the bomb in boardgame circles. Not my area of expertise (my favourite wargame is War of the Ring, which has minis in spades) so can't give more specific recs, but they're out there, so you might just have to go to a larger or dustier game shop.
GMT Games, their P500 program is wonderful and they do tons of hex and counter wargames. If you haven't already check out the COIN Series, it's a wonderful card based wargame series that simulates counterinsurgencies. They have one based on the Cuban Revolution (Cuba Libre), the Algerian Revolution (Colonial Twilight), Vietnam (Fire in the Lake), Finnish civil war (All Bridges Burning), and an upcoming one about China during WII (China's War), all of which you can play as communists and win and they're great.
There are a few historical wargames that are like box games that I know of, but to be honest they're pretty niche. Wargaming as most people think of it is something you do with 3D terrain and miniatures, and that's a lot of the fun for most people.
Are you interested in a particular genre or historical era?
So two games I have played that I love are Panzer Blitz and Panzer Leader, Blitz especially because you can play as the Soviets :). They were made by Avalon Hill in the early 70s but they're not impossible to find online. It's flawed (for example, basically no aircraft which isn't realistic for WWII), but overall I really love the mechanics of it. If you get it, I'd recommend reading up on alternative rules online. People realized early on you needed to modify the standard rules to make it play better.
I've also heard very good things about Squad Leader but never played it.
I'm interested in wargames for the game part, I don't wanna paint shit
I'm on the opposite end. I want to paint shit and playing is a secondary thing.
That said, I am looking forward to trying out GW's Warcry after painting it up over lockdown.
Not really my speed, however I have been eyeing up resin miniature busts. They tend to be a bigger scale than minis but still have a whole lot of different aesthetics and characters
What the fuck. Let people enjoy things. Maybe this person actually is a grandpa or maybe they just have a little taste. In my experience being interested in minifig games like 40k is a way more reliable chud detector than being interested in old shit, but I still don't assume that every player of one is a chud. Christ, don't be so judgemental.
Also if you think owning guns in America is for chuds only, I don't need anything else to tell me you're a fucking lib. Just full of shit-tier takes.
