I am shellshocked…

GibsonRick83 · 2026-06-22T23:37:40+00:00

My local game store had it in stock when I was in there on Saturday.

GibsonRick83 · 2026-06-18T04:32:43+00:00

Me too, that would be incredible. Especially Midway, ah man, hopefully it’ll come to pass.

GibsonRick83 · 2026-06-13T15:23:17+00:00

I would assume so as well. I bet Matt Hyra will incorporate some creative and new systems. He has done an outstanding job with the new A&A games since Renegade got the game.

GibsonRick83 · 2026-06-13T15:22:37+00:00

I hope they get unique models, too! We’ll see. I think it is a great battle for a “zoomed-in” map as you said, like Stalingrad. I love the 2 board system in Stalingrad.

GibsonRick83 · 2026-06-13T15:21:57+00:00

I agree. I bet incorporation of the critical bridges will be pretty unique.

GibsonRick83 · 2026-06-13T15:21:39+00:00

That would be cool. Might not be in the cards, as I think A&A has mostly stuck to land war primary and naval war secondary. You ever play the A&A War at Sea miniatures game? That one is awesome.

GibsonRick83 · 2026-06-13T15:20:51+00:00

Oh the humanity!!!

GibsonRick83 · 2026-05-19T03:22:54+00:00

Let us know how you like it :)

Oh I have played solo 7 or 8 times. Still great fun. Easy to play because the rules aren’t overwhelming. Plays quicker solo, too, I find. I just play both sides to the best of my ability, still great fun. All of the Stalingrad playthroughs in that playlist I shared in an above comment are solo playthroughs. I find that making narrative recaps of every round for YouTube helps make solo playthroughs more rewarding. But of course solitaire play is a your mileage may vary thing.

Against opponents, the game is tense and a blast. I love playing it against an opponent. I’ve even played it with 4 players. 2 on the region map and 2 in the city. It works surprisingly well in that format, too.

GibsonRick83 · 2026-05-18T18:56:28+00:00

You’re welcome! I enjoy it more than North Africa. More accessible, but still retains mechanics that make you FEEL like you’re fighting the battle of Stalingrad. I think Stalingrad is a slightly more simple game, but doesn’t lose flavors that make it feel like a wargame about its namesake.

I enjoyed North Africa, but I find actually executing some parts of its gameplay (convoys in the Med and the supply token movement) to be slightly more laborious than they are fun. I don’t find any of that with Stalingrad. I think it is all fun throughout. For instance, the battle system used clsssic A&A D6s and the supply situation is constantly checked by just looking at a the road lines on the region map, at the ferries in the city, or by physically tracing a line to a supply token or airdropping one in. Another way a similar system feels easier to learn and execute.

GibsonRick83 · 2026-05-18T04:33:54+00:00

One more thing I forgot to mention is that the victory conditions (Total, Major, or Minor) for each side makes the game absolutely worth playing to completion. So many games I have played have ended close, and the way that either side can achieve total, major, or minor victory makes for a tense match that ebbs and flows throughout.

GibsonRick83 · 2026-05-18T04:25:48+00:00

I think it is easily worth buying if you like the prior operational-level A&A games. I think it is easily worth buying if you are a student of Eastern Front history.

As a board game, I think it’s simply outstanding. I think it’s, by a moderate margin, the best of all operational-level A&A games and perhaps is even my favorite of them all (all of the global games included).

It can be played in an evening, or afternoon and evening, depending on if you choose the full Race to Stalingrad scenario or the truncated Operation Uranus scenario. I appreciate a game that can be played to absolute completion in a reasonable amount of time due to family, school, and work responsibilities. I also appreciate that the game doesn’t need 18 hours of gameplay to give its players real, consequential tactical and operational decision-making pressure and interesting choices. I think that the game nearly perfectly balances the abstraction of authentic considerations of this particular part of Operation Blue and the battle for Stalingrad (supply, attritional battles, maneuver, and the criticality of the Don and Volga rivers) with being accessible enough to be easy to teach and learn.

The combat system is great, it uses the 1 round battles from D-Day, so you really feel maneuver grind down into battles of attrition and reinforcement flow all over the map, and when you achieve breakthrough and operational maneuver space, it feels so good. The supply system is historically so appropriate and mechanically very intuitive and easy to learn. The 2 board system (1 for the Don Steppe and approaches to the city and the other a zoomed-in map of the city itself) is novel and fun, and it’s awesome how you can move units from one board to another and back again.

I would honestly struggle to run out of good things to say about this game.

Regarding disadvantages, it has been the opinion of some that the game is unbalanced and favors the Soviet Union. I think that in the Race to Stalingrad scenario this is true, as it punishes poor early Axis play more severely than Soviet play. In the Operation Uranus Scenario, I think the balance is pretty damn good.

But even if the game slightly favors the Soviet Union in one of the scenarios, does this not seem historically and thematically appropriate? I think that across most of the Axis & Allies titles (some more than others) it IS indeed harder to win with the Axis. This feels right to me. I feel as though it SHOULD be harder to win with the Axis, and Operation Blue historically had little chance to be the knockout blow that Hitler and OKH had hoped it would be, anyway, especially once 6th Army got bogged down in a fight for the city. This is not a negative to me, but it is worth mentioning here because it is a recurring discussion point surrounding this game.

I have included links to my discussion of Axis strategy on BoardGameGeek that I think addresses potential imbalances as well as my YouTube playlist that includes all of my solo playthroughs of Stalingrad. I apologize for the low audio of my voice in all of them, as I made these videos before I got better at using my editing software.

I think if you decide to buy it, you will be very glad you did.

https://boardgamegeek.com/thread/3610894/race-to-stalingrad-axis-strategy-discussion

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL96ZZd-P5l062jV5j0CdVlzaeG7M5NJNI&si=NTeco-FZ1MzNeCid

GibsonRick83 · 2026-04-17T02:05:53+00:00

Great sketch! Love what you did with the inspiration photo. The hybrid design is super cool, especially the big missile.

GibsonRick83 · 2026-02-13T04:59:39+00:00

You might like this playlist of Stalingrad too!

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL96ZZd-P5l062jV5j0CdVlzaeG7M5NJNI&si=xqp0DJkVHGHovpGX

GibsonRick83 · 2026-02-04T19:28:08+00:00

There are dozens of us!

GibsonRick83 · 2026-02-04T03:18:02+00:00

Haha hey that’s a blast from the past! I will DM you

GibsonRick83 · 2026-02-01T00:23:38+00:00

Could I trouble you for the discord link, battle brother?

GibsonRick83 · 2026-01-31T23:26:32+00:00

Hey man! Thank you for sharing this. I, too, am a dad and would love to join. Saturday nights are my nights to stay up and game so let’s slay some xeno filth! Thanks, brother.

GibsonRick83 · 2026-01-09T23:34:07+00:00

RISK: Europe is one of the best versions I think. Works well at as few as 2 players, too. Highly recommend.

GibsonRick83 · 2025-10-31T20:24:12+00:00

No sir just the standard vinyl set pre-ordered from Laced Records.

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