Battlelines WWII:

Drive on Stalingrad Card Game

by Bill Rutherford

DoS is LBG’s first game in this genre (card games) and allows, through an ingenious card display system, two players to fight battles between the German 9th Panzer Division and the Soviet 18th Tank Corps during the German drive on the city. I’ll say right up front that I don’t generally play card games of any sort, so my approach to DoS was that of a complete neophyte. I’m OK with maps and counters, miniatures and rules, but I struggled for several days with the rules, trying to make sense of things before discovering the LBG website at www.lostbattalion.com – this was a lifesaver because it contains a narrative introduction to the game system (there are four other similar games currently in print) as well as numerous examples of play.

Once past that hurdle, i.e., once everything had been placed in context, things moved much more smoothly (lesson learned: When the website is prominently advertised on the package, pay it some heed!) The game comes packed in a videocassette and consists of three decks of 55 cards – one for the 9th Panzer, one for the 18 Tank Corps, and one containing location and mission cards. Production values are high throughout – visually beautiful cards, lots of color and flavor, and lots of information. The former two decks include battalion-level (generally) cards representing the division’s units, which are the forces each side controls during game play. The third deck contains terrain cards that represent the ground over which the battle will be fought, non-divisional (e.g., corps-level/army level) reinforcement cards for both sides, and mission cards that are used to set up scenarios and represent the lines of attack, etc.; these can be linked by communications lines that allow multiple missions to be linked in multi-player games.

There’s no room here for a detailed play-by-play, but the general gist is that a mission card is selected. This determines each side’s starting forces, unit cards drawn from their division decks, and the number of terrain cards placed. The terrain cards represent specific locales, each with attack and defense modifiers, types of actions (attacks, moves, etc.) allowed, and generally provide modifiers to the units defending or attacking them. The unit cards contain a LOT of information, ranging from combat factors, planning and order-issuing abilities, and a variety of other details, including various check numbers used to determine whether actions undertaken by the players succeed or not (cards are drawn during play as actions are attempted). Cards get randomly and pejoratively discarded before play begins, lending a certain uncertainty level to everything. During play, the players attempt to execute actions to seize terrain in order to accrue victory points, based on the criteria on the mission card.

The game plays in a pretty reasonable manner. Attacks are launched, ground seized, and objectives accomplished, all in a logical and visually convincing manner, and in something under an hour. Once you get used to the cards, it’s not so very different than looking at board-game counters (except for the considerably greater information content!) The 32-page rulebook provides a clear description of game play and the rules. I say this now, having studied LBG’s website; alone, the rule book is more of a reference book (in my opinion) than a guide to play. Learning is best accomplished when in conjunction to a visit to the website. The rules are also downloadable in PDF format from the website so you can look and learn before you buy. I don’t think I’m going to replace my miniatures and board-game play with card-play but I *am* trying to figure out how to use DoS as a campaign game to drive miniatures scenarios! It’s all there…

Drive on Stalingrad should be available from your local gameshop. If you can’t find it there, go to Lost Battalion Games’ website at www.lostbattalion.com – go there anyway to see what this game’s about! You can also order them the old fashioned way from the publisher at PO Box 390, Reisterstown, MD 21136…

Other games in the series – each with different card decks – include Streets of Stalingrad (German 110th Rifle Division versus the Soviet 112th Rifle Division), Operation Uranus (Rumanian 1st Panzer Division versus Soviet 4th Cavalry Corps), and Winter Storm (German 11th Panzer Division versus Soviet 1st Guards Mech Corps). The games are, of course, combinable and identically priced at $29.95… If you are a WW II gamer and want to try something completely different, I recommend them!

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