Solo (small) war game

You can play Undaunted against an AI on your phone/tablet/pc with the physical board:

http://www.unbotted.ga

And there are some solo rules/suggestions at Boardgamegeek and youtube

For what it’s worth, the Undaunted games are pretty easy to play solo, and as others mentioned previously there are official solo rules being real eased next year in the Reinforcements expansion, and plenty of fan made variants on BGG.

For other games, Pavlov’s House and Castle Itter are also good games from DVG.

Risk is to war games as Go Fish is to Contact Bridge.

There is a venerable and intimidating genre of games called wargames which you probably have never even seen, they look like this and the people who play them call themselves grognards. The scale can be anything from an individual battle, as in the above picture, to an entire campaign front or even bigger. They're usually historically accurate, though there are sci-fi and alternate history wargames, and they can be extremely realistic, with tables listing accurate damages, ranges, etc.

They are probably not what you want. They can take hours if not days to play a full campaign and they're really for military nerds who love getting into the nitty gritty reality of boots on the ground.

You're probably more in the market for something like Memoir 44 or Battle Cry, with miniatures instead of cardboard chits, dice rolling instead of engagement tables, and a much shorter average play time. I've never played these and they don't support solo play by default, although I wouldn't be surprised if solo rules exist for Memoir 44, it's been popular for years.

I personally adore the COIN games from GMT for their balance between war- and Euro-games, and I've heard great things about their Commands and Colours series as well, but those are definitely not "small" games.

Pocket Landship is solo. The retail version is under $15, and there's a free PnP that, while pretty basic, is actually a lot of fun.

Continuing along the PnP front, I've also heard good things about Kettle Hill. Again, small, but free.

Some of the sci-fi options from Tiny Battle Publishing look interesting. I think they ship in a baggy and are somewhat low cost component wise but they seem to be well regarded. https://tinybattlepublishing.com/t/soltaire

May not be exactly what you are looking for, but I've enjoyed Phantom Leader. Would recommend Pavlov's House as well.

Maquis

Rifles in the Ardennes. Simple to set up, easy to learn and play, and has a surprisingly rich narrative for such a small game. I believe it's only around $30 US, too. Oh, and the designer has even created a free mission generator!

(Edit: $, not #)

Theres a solo expansion coming out for this game I believe

Not a traditional war game, but "1759: the siege of Quebec" I have found to be fairly light and fun with a battle theme.

+1 for maquis

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u/dryule

Maquis is getting a reprint

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sideroomgames/maquis-2nd-edition/

!RemindMe 2 days