Senet
Senet is one of the oldest known board games. Fragmentary boards that could be senet have been found in First Dynasty burials in Egypt, c. 3100 BC. A hieroglyph resembling a senet board appears in the tomb of Merknera (3300–2700 BC). The first unequivocal painting of this ancient game is from the Third Dynasty tomb of Hesy (c. 2686–2613 BC). People are depicted playing senet in a painting in the tomb of Rashepes, as well as from other tombs of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties (c. 2500 BC). The oldest intact senet boards date to the Middle Kingdom, but graffiti on Fifth and Sixth Dynasty monuments could date as early as the Old Kingdom.
At least by the time of the New Kingdom in Egypt (1550–1077 BC), senet was conceived as a representation of the journey of the ka (the vital spark) to the afterlife. This connection is made in the Great Game Text, which appears in a number of papyri, as well as the appearance of markings of religious significance on senet boards themselves. The game is also referred to in chapter XVII of the "Book of the Dead".
Board wargame
The most recent of the major types of board wargame, it was created by the game "We the People" published by Avalon Hill in 1994. In most aspects it is much like a typical board wargame (on the simpler side of the spectrum), but play is driven by a deck of cards that both players draw from. These cards control "activation points", which allow the use of troops, as well as events that represent things outside the normal scope of the game. Newer card driven games have helped reinvigorate the war game genre as well as other differently themed games. "Twilight Struggle", a game based on the Cold War, was ranked #1 on the website BoardGameGeek from December 2010 to January 2016. As of September 2018, it's ranked fifth overall but first for wargames.