Continuing along in this new series devoted to the best looking boards found in the wargaming world where I will highlight the art and layout of a different board in a wargame that we have played to show you the various talents of the artists and graphic designers involved. In my humble opinion, a well designed and attractive board can make all the difference in the world to me enjoying a wargame. Don’t get me wrong, the game has to be good, but if it’s also good looking it always is a better experience. A board can draw me in. Can make me feel that I’m there. Can set the stage for the thematic immersion that we all crave. And I have found many of these type of boards and I want to make sure that I share them with you.

East Front games have been done to death in our hobby! There are literally hundreds of them. And generally, they are all the same with long continuous lines of units stacked up in gridlock with the German player making attacks up and down the lines and the Soviet player simply sitting there and taking it for hours until the tide turns in 1942 and the Soviets go on the offensive. There is nothing wrong with this but it is what has become expected on the subject. Each time that we crack out an East Front game, we are ready for this same experience. But occasionally when a game does something that creates a different experience, an unexpected experience, we are very pleased and love trying to understand how the unique take has changed the feeling.

Such was our experience last year when we played Donnerschlag: Escape from Stalingrad from VUCA Simulations. Our playthrough was simply exhilarating. We were caught off guard and really didn’t expect this situation to change so much and feel so different. Now I realize that the scale of this game is very different from the scales of most of the other East Front games we have played, but this system and its implementation really created some opportunities for maneuvering of units, used cards in a very unique way that gave some real opportunities to the players and also was based in the hard core hex and counter style with a very small CRT that accumulated lots of shifts and a few DRM’s from card play that made each roll seem to be life or death.

Donnserschlag is a two player game which is playable in roughly 1 hour per turn. This means that a full 7 turn game will take 7 hours but probably a bit more upon your first play. We felt like as we got into the groove of the game and became more comfortable with the sequence of play and combat procedure that turns would be able to be completed in 40-45 minutes on a 2nd play. I do want to point out that this is more of a game than a true simulation and was designed to create a high level of player interaction and replayability. The historical situation is from December 12 to December 23 in 1942, “Unternehmen Wintergewitter” was in progress. This was the code name for a relief attack by Heeresgruppe Don to free the trapped 6th Army in Stalingrad.

VUCA Simulations broke onto the scene about 4 years ago, albeit under a different name (Furor Teutonicus). They have established themselves as a high quality publisher in a short time and their games are really fantastic, both in their production and gameplay. Donnerschlag: Escape from Stalingrad was a great game but also was a joy to look at even though it is a monochrome board that depicts the snow covered terrain on the East Front. The artist for the game is Pablo Bazerque whose only other artist credit is with a new game from VUCA Simulations called Traces of War. He did a fantastic job with this board and it really captures the essence of the struggle on the East Front in the chilly and snowy months of December 1942.

The area covered by the map is just south of the city of Stalingrad and East of the Don River. There are three rivers that are running in a West-East direction. Those can help the Soviet player to create some pretty strong defensive lines. That is why the German player has to push hard to take some river crossings before the Soviet player is able to reinforce them. Also, the Western flank is very much blocked by the Don River.

Here is a good closeup look at the area of the board located in the southwest corner from which the attacking Germans start. You can see the Don River on the left of the picture with its very wide and larger segments of river than the smaller tributaries that flow into it from the east. As the bridges and river crossings are so very important in the game, I really like what was done with their coloring. They look very much similar to other bridges in other games but they are colored black which helps them to stick out from the snowy terrain around them. As the attacking German player, you have to control these bridges and run across them to push the defending Soviets back and create holes that can be exploited all in an attempt to reach the main roads and race north to assist in the break out. The roads are also very clear and the brown chosen color really works the same as the black for the bridges as they stand out very well. Even the smaller trails shown with the dotted lines, which offer less movement bonus, are well done and are clear.

As we move up the board, and reach Verhne-Kurmoyarskaya to the north, you can see a nice closeup of the city here. The cities are clearly marked with black squares and rectangles representing buildings and there is always a gray backdrop to the city that helps to make it pop. The color pallet is one of my favorite parts of the board and keeping in mind the season and time of year, the grays, whites, blues and blacks really make an interesting and eye catching terrain.

If we zoom out a bit and focus on the center of the board, we see several smaller towns with river crossings nearby but I want to focus again on the terrain represented here. The topographic lines overlaid on top of the area is reminiscent of snow drifts and seem to weave and zigzag their way through this somewhat stark and barren section of the board. This use of the lines was a brilliant choice as it creates a very subtle backdrop against which the other elements can stand out but also lends the board a sense of motion.

The whole point of the game is for the German player to push north and assist the 6th Army in breaking out of the encirclement they find themselves trapped in. At some point in the game, the German player must call out “Donnerschlag” which is a way of simulating the orders to 6th Army, which are located off-map, to prepare and conduct the breakout. The player has to secretly choose a Meeting Zone on the map and has to reach it at the end of the fourth turn after calling it out to win. The Soviet player of course has to prevent this, although usually they do not know which Meeting Zone the German player is heading to.

As you can see below, there are 3 of these Meeting Zones lettered A, B and C. Each of these areas has a certain amount of hexes contained within their area and there are several approaches to get to each of the Meeting Zones. As you can see, the outer boundaries of each of the Zones is marked with gray cross hatches that really help to accentuate the locations.

Now you can see that the board is beautiful and that the terrain and hexes are very well done. But, how do the administrative parts of the game look? If a game doesn’t do these aspects well, even though it is pretty to look at, it will make all that work for naught as the game will be more difficult to play. Let’s take a look at some of the administrative aids such as the Turn Track and the card boxes.

Below is a look at the Turn Track. I love the use of the symbols for both the Soviets and the Germans on the track as this represents when they receive reinforcements. The Soviets get reinforcements in Turns 2, 3, 6 and 7 while the Germans only get them in Turn 4. The High Command notation associated with Turns 1, 4 and 8 clearly inform the German player to choose a Combat Card from their available cards and I like how the black used really stands out to remind about this important aspect. I also love the Donnerschlag title printed directly on the board below the Turn Track. The Turn Track is very nice looking and brings some nice aesthetic to the game that already looks great!

Located along the top edge of the board is the various Card Boxes that help players to keep their cards somewhat organized. Each player has 5 boxes assigned to them marked with their national symbol. These boxes include Activation Deck Box, Combat Deck Box, Permanently Removed Combat Cards Box, Discard Pile Box and the OKH Box and Stavka Box respectively. My only quibble here was they need a bit more space but I know that they tried to fit a lot on the board and they did what was necessary.

Next we will take a look at the Donnerschlag Track as this is a main focus of the game as already discussed. You will notice that the Track has 6 spaces including a space form 0 to 5 as the German player has to declare Donnerschlag prior to Turn 3 or Turn 4 at the latest. When it is called, the player places out the Donnerschlag marker on the track in the 0 space and then secretly chooses which Meeting Zone they are targeting. They will have 4-5 turns to accomplish the goal of making it into the chosen Meeting Zone and if they fail, they will use as the 6th Army will not meet up with them and will have to surrender. I like the placement of this important track but also that it is directly connected to the Meeting Zones which are located below the track.

We have really enjoyed playing Donnerschlag: Escape from Stalingrad and I liked it so much that I placed it in my #2 spot on my Top 10 Wargames of 2022!. We had a great time with this one and were really blown away by its simplicity but also with how the mechanics worked so well together. The board and the components are also just beautiful to look at and we found the whole experience to be great!

We posted an interview with the designer Patrick Gebhardt on the blog and you can read that at the following link: https://theplayersaid.com/2022/08/02/interview-with-patrick-gebhardt-designer-of-donnerschlag-escape-from-stalingrad-from-vuca-simulations/

Here is a link to our video review:

If you are interested in Donnerschlag: Escape from Stalingrad, you can order a copy for $74.00 from the VUCA Simulations website at the following link: https://vucasims.com/products/donnerschlag-escape-from-stalingrad

The next board that we will take a look at in the series is Keep Up the Fire!: The Boxer Rebellion from Worthington Publishing designed by John Welch and illustrated by Tim Allen.

Here are links to the previous entries in the series:

Kekionga!: A Dark and Bloody Battleground, 1790 from High Flying Dice Games

Campaigns of 1777 in Strategy & Tactics Magazine #316 from Decision Games

Battle Hymn Volume 1: Gettysburg and Pea Ridge from Compass Games

From Salerno to Rome: World War II – The Italian Campaign, 1943-1944 from Dissimula Edizioni

This War Without an Enemy: The English Civil War 1642-1646 from Nuts! Publishing

Holland ‘44: Operation Market-Garden, September 1944 from GMT Games

Maori Wars: The New Zealand Land Wars, 1845-1872 from Legion Wargames

Imperial Struggle: The Global Rivalry – Britain & France 1697-1789 from GMT Games

Stilicho: Last of the Romans from Hollandspiele

Nevsky: Teutons and Rus in Collision, 1240-1242 from GMT Games

A Most Fearful Sacrifice: The Three Days of Gettysburg from Flying Pig Games

-Grant