Avalon Hill · Category
AVALON HILL RULEBOOKS
The rulebooks that built the modern hobby wargame.
For four decades, Avalon Hill rulebooks weren't just instructions — they were technical manuals, historical essays, and design treatises stapled between cardboard covers. This is a guide to the flagship rulebooks that defined the hex-and-counter tradition and still anchor active tournament play today.
Landmark Rulebooks
Tactics II Rulebook
#11958
The first-ever hobby wargame rulebook — the ancestor of every hex-and-counter set that followed.
Gettysburg Rulebook
#21958 / 1961 / 1964 / 1977
Four distinct editions, each rewritten as Avalon Hill iterated on hex maps, combat tables, and stacking rules.
Panzerblitz Rulebook
#31970
Codified tactical armored combat: line-of-sight, opportunity fire, and dispersed movement.
Squad Leader Rulebook + Programmed Instruction
#41977
Introduced modular, scenario-driven rules — teach-as-you-play was born here.
Advanced Squad Leader Rulebook (ASLRB)
#51985
The legendary binder. Still the deepest, most detailed tactical WWII rules ever printed.
Third Reich Rulebook
#61974
Grand-strategic WWII in Europe with production, diplomacy, and combined arms in a single volume.
Diplomacy Rulebook
#71959 / 1976
Twelve pages of rules that generated fifty years of table-top betrayal.
Civilization Rulebook
#81980
Trade, technology, and cultural advancement — the template for a whole video-game genre.
Titan Rulebook
#91980
Fantasy stack combat and legendary-creature recruitment, all in a slim rules pamphlet.
Acquire Rulebook
#101962
The cleanest economic-game rules ever written — six pages of hotel-chain warfare.