But if you like me are a boardgamer who still have a shelf full of Avalon Hill games on your shelf, from Wooden Ships & Iron Men, to Civilization, to UpFront, to 1830 and the still published Diplomacy et/al he is the father of the hobby that you have enjoyed for decades.
As the founder of Avalon Hill his realistic wargames broke the mold and gave an outlet for all of us history buffs who didn’t follow the anti-military trend in society during the 60’s and 70.
His games rewarded strategic and creative thinking, From 1776, to War and Peace, from Tobruk to Third Reich. My gaming group still plays these type of games on a weekly basis 30+ years after we were first introduced to them. A full list of games are here.
Although since Hasbro took them over the “official” avalon hill line is decimated, you can still enjoy many of these games thanks to Curt Schilling’s MMP who hold the rights to many of these games and publish them and other new games so you can enjoy the hobby.
I’ll wager a lot of conservative bloggers like myself have the flags of a hundred different flags of history at half mast this morning.
Da Techguy's (no longer backup) Blog 
I have fond memories of playing multi-day sessions of Diplomacy as Tsar Nicholas II and as the Pope in A Mighty Fortress [which I think was AH]. A friend of mine, who is now a serving Major in the Army, used to play Tobruk against himself and claims it helped him study warfare.
I still game regularly great stuff
I’ve still got a ton of them, but haven’t board gamed in many years. The rise of the computer sort of killed it for me. Inside the boxes of several of my games are the hand-written counter positions from high school games meant to be continued later but never finished. /s to Charles Roberts
You can still find online opponents to play such games. Take advantage of it when possible.