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German Solitaire

Soviet Solitaire

Vassal HoS Game
by Chuck Parrot

Zun Tzu HoS Game
by David Laufle

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Design Notes

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Many people have commented that The Hell of Stalingrad has a game structure that is somewhat different from the usual WWII board game. This forum is a compilation of my notes regarding game design.

Concerning Design Theory:

A few people had questions regarding the game's Operational level and what I wanted to achieve with the game.

What I was trying to achieve with "The Hell of Stalingrad" was to give an accurate "feel" of what it was like to be the Supreme Commander by incorporating "fog of war" elements at every level of the game. I wanted to put you into the battle by not allowing you to be able to predict every outcome.

As a Supreme Commander you have to send thousands of soldiers to into the bloodiest land battle ever fought while unhinged despotic leaders demand immediate victory at all costs. A truly chaotic situation even in the best of times.

The truth of the matter is you don't know when Strategic Level events will occur that will shape your battlefield and I did include specific dates for that reason. The mechanic I use for the campaign phase pretty much guarantees that Lopatin will be replaced early on in the game but you never know what will happen. The Soviet player may have to suffer Lopatin for a few turns or just like in real life he could be replaced just before the battle really starts.

There are many Stalingrad games on the market which are good approximations of battle from the standpoint of a 10,000 tall general. What I wanted to do with the Hell of Stalingrad was jump into the conflict and let you experience the battle from the ground up. Several "what if" situations are built seamlessly into the mechanics, this provides a different experience with every game and captures the very unpredictable nature of war.

> I received a couple good questions asking me why I included, Lopatin, a virtually unknown historical figure instead of the famous Chuikov as the starting Supreme Commander for the 62nd Army.

I felt the best way to answer this question was with a bit of additional background:

Lopatin was a contemptible "Yes Man" who survived Stalin's purges by ingratiating himself with the communist elite. By the time of Stalingrad, he was commanding the 62nd Army but did not believe the city could be held and was only putting half-hearted efforts into building its defenses. His lack of preparation would negatively affect the Soviets when Chuikov took over.

Concerning Lopatin:

I knew early on that I was going to take some heat for including Lopatin, as his relationship to the battle is easily misunderstood. I have him for a couple of different reasons.

1. Historically it is accurate to have him in charge. He was there when the Germans approached Stalingrad, when in doubt I err on the side of history. Now granted he was not in command long and his replacement, the brilliant General Chuikov, is almost guaranteed to replace Lopatin in the first few turns of the game.

2. Having Lopatin in charge at the start of the game is also a way of demonstrating the terrible strategic position the Soviets were in at the beginning of the battle. The army had just been crushed fighting at the Don River and had barely escaped encirclement. The 62nd the Army was a chaotic mess of desperate soldiers fighting a critical holding action and they could have very easily lost everything.

Having Lopitan as the initial Supreme Commander kills two birds with one stone both fulfilling the historical reality of the battle and by showing abstractly the difficulty facing the Soviets.

Some people were curious about sudden death nature of the Break Tests.

Concerning Break Tests:

The dice rolls are a valid criticism on the game and have been all throughout the games four years of playtesting. Some people will enjoy the break tests for the bloody realism it generates and some people won't.

I designed the break rolls mainly to take into account the asymmetrical nature of urban warfare. The truth of Stalingrad is that a system needed to be designed to into account situations where 50 Guards could hold the Grain Elevator for two weeks against 20,000 attacking Germans even when all their supporting formations had been driven off.

Over the years of playtesting I have worked to weigh Break Tests in favor of the participant who makes the best strategic and tactical choices during a battle while still leaving open the outcome of the Break test in doubt.

Several people think the cards are more extreme than other games, in this regards I agree and answered a post as to why that is.

Concerning Card Design:

All the source materials I read about Stalingrad repeatedly mentioned how grueling and horrific the combat was. The question I faced was how do you do justice to a struggle of unspeakable brutality in which an average 5,000 soldiers died every day?

There are many very good Stalingrad games on the market which look nice and include beautiful maps and simple sedate cards. The player is insulated from the terror of the battlefield with cleanly cut chits that fight and die in nice predictable dice rolls.

The cards in The Hell of Stalingrad were designed to evoke a visceral response and put you squarely into the action. Stalingrad is many things but there was nothing nice, pretty, or predictable about the bloodiest battle of WWII. The game is my attempt to capture aspects of the battle which have not been fully explored in previous wargames.