I myself am a boardgamer, although I was originally schooled in the the RPG section.... but time, and space makes it difficult to play. I enjoyed Empires in Arms, World In Flames, Flattop, Turningpoint Stalingrad.
But there is one thing I must bring to your attention.
http://www.vassalengine.org/community/index.php
is a site where all of us who can't find the space and time to meet, can play boardgames against eachother. All you need is to download the free vassalengine and the appropriate mods. Say you enjoy playing Squadleader, then you download the mods with maps, counters and so on. All you need is the rules. If you don't own the rules, you must buy them from the publisher, such as Avalon. However a great deals of rules are to be found on other sites. Vassal doesn't give you the rules, since this is probably the only way that publisher would accept their games being reproduced online. But as I said rules booklets are to be found for most of the games its just a matter of searching the web.
The map is reproduced in a java application. Its is not a simulated game like Close Combat, you can move the counters all over the board as you like, just as you can do that physically with a regular boardgame. As in real life however the players will have to know the rules.
The great thing is that Vassal keeps track on your movement and records it in a logfile. When you move one counter your opponent will see that counter being moved. It is up to you and the rules to make sure that the counter and combat is being resolved properly, there is even a dice included.
I hope my description makes sense. What we have done is that we first of all installed Vassal, as I said it is free to download and operate. Then we agreeed to what game we wanted to play, downloaded the mod and installed it. We then got the rules from our own boardgame and had that in hand when we started the computer. Then I log-on to vassal, set up a game and waited for my friend to have him join our game. Then we started MSN messenger and used the voice-conversation feature with our headsets. Personal experince tells me that it is virtually impossible to keep a boardgame flowing online through regular MSN texting. You need that headset to communicate in regards to rules and combat. - a great deal of fun with playing boardgame to me is debatting history as we re-play it.
Vassal is a great alternative to having a dusty board in a small appartment, where your girlfriend is threatening to break the stalingrad encirclement through her hoovering.
see the list for the games available:
http://www.vassalengine.org/community/i ... &Itemid=30
regards