by Matt Hyra

In Renegade Game Studios' "You Pick the Battle! We'll Make the Game!" Axis & Allies poll in February 2023, votes for Stalingrad were a close second to North Africa, so we knew the fans would want to see it sooner than later. Work on Axis & Allies: Stalingrad started up shortly after Axis & Allies: North Africa went to the printers, and this article will talk about early ideas and how playtesting changed most of those details into what you can now hold in your hands and play on your table.

In the lead up to our first official "ideas" meeting, Larry Harris (the original creator of Axis & Allies) and I had been emailing a little bit, and we both had been seeing the game featuring two boards: one featuring the area mostly west of the city of Stalingrad, and one board just for the city. So we had a starting point, and from there we prepped for the video call.

Larry and I had our first Facetime meeting on February 12, 2024. I had been writing down ideas for Stalingrad ever since it was part of the voting, and Larry had forty years of contemplating Stalingrad in the back of his mind. Larry wanted to be part of the high-level planning on this one, leaving the rules, playtesting, and final decisions to me. Stalingrad was one of the most titanic battles of World War II and is considered to be the turning point of the entire war. As such, he wanted this game to be "the cornerstone of everyone's Axis & Allies collection". That's a lot of responsibility!

Playtesting started at the beginning of April 2024 and continued until the end of November — eight months in total, after about two months of concepting and preparing a playtester rulebook. Such a rulebook covers only the new stuff, not the basics like movement and combat that experienced players already know by heart. The playtests took place on Screentop, an online digital surface much like TableTop Simulator and other programs. I sat in on most of the playtests, especially early on.

The Scope

Larry and I both know the battle well. Games based on historical events have a leg up over new concepts. We know what happened, so our job is to present that situation to the players, gamify it, and give the players plenty of opportunities to make their own decisions that could rewrite history.

Most players also have a general idea of what happened at Stalingrad. They are going to expect certain things. We need to have those things happen, but with enough variance that the game is not a pure simulation of the events. The player must feel in control, not railroaded along a preset path.

Larry wanted the game to feature three phases:

▪️ Advance into the city
▪️ Inside the city
▪️ Counteroffensives

With those phases in mind, I presented my idea for limited reinforcements until:

• Operation Uranus: The Soviet counteroffensive that sought to surround and cut off the German 6th Army, and
• Operation Winter Storm: The German counteroffensive that sought to relieve the surrounded Germans.

The players are aware that these counteroffensives will take place, so they lack the surprise they had in reality, but giving the Soviets the option to launch Operation Uranus when they please goes a long way toward game variance and allowing the player to react to the board situation. If the Axis is close to capturing the entire city, launching Uranus early could cut off Axis supplies to the city, stunting their ability to make any progress.

Limited reinforcements is not something A&A players are used to as they typically deploy a dozen or so new units every round in the other games, but Stalingrad was a meatgrinder. I wanted to see divisions disappear inside the city and on the endless steppe. I wanted the losses to be noticed, not instantly replaced by the next wave of reinforcements. I wanted to challenge the players to make the best use of what they had in theater. Historically, the German 6th Army received only replacement battalions. The Soviets trickled in just enough units to hang on, while dozens of divisions prepared for Uranus.

I wanted to avoid the typical "Infantry are always the first casualty" method present in every other game. If the Axis protects their Infantry, they'll be rewarded when they enter the city. I wanted to see a scale difference between the two boards. I originally proposed that German Infantry would triple themselves when entering the city. Before playtesting even started, this was down to German Infantry/Mechanized Infantry merely doubling themselves. Tripling was too much, and it was awkward to fill a zone with a stacking limit of 8.

I wanted the city fight to be mostly Infantry, as city fighting typically is. Of course, nothing is stopping you from driving a large stack of armor through the city, but the Ambush Sites make it a big risk. The city fight was arduous and protracted, and Infantry provide that experience as they miss their combat rolls way more often than not.

The Region Board

The area covered was a point of early contention. Larry wanted to see the Region Board extend quite far to the west. I wanted to see even less than we ended up with. I wanted to see only a couple of the Uranus launch zones north of the Don, while Larry wanted to give the Soviets the option to launch it far to the west if they so wished. I wanted some Soviet units to enter the Region Board from the west to simulate the deep penetrations that took place before the Germans could respond. I drew dozens of iterations of the Region Board using Google Maps as the template before we compromised.

Early Region Board
Eventually, we both realized that there were too many zones as I was trying to make all of the zones the same size. We needed as many zones as we could get around the city as that is where the game typically comes to a conclusion. We also realized that there was simply too much territory for Uranus forces to cross to try to surround the city. The zones west of the Don grew in size as their numbers shrank. The zones close to the city are a bit smaller, but there's still enough space. The Region Board went through many small changes during playtesting, but the scope of the game was set.

Larry suggested the colors for the Region Board during the graphic design stage, when the artists, playtesters, and myself could not agree on a direction.

Final Region Board
The City Board

I showed Larry the 1942 German map of Stalingrad, which was broken up into districts — a gold mine for a game designer! Oddly, the map cut off the southern tip of the city. Eventually, I found a pic of just the Kuporosnoye area, not a complete map, so I had to paste it together, as you can see here. While I wanted that southern tip to make the map complete, there were too many districts on the historical map. You might be able to make out the dashed lines on the original map that separated the districts. The key in the lower right of the map explained what was present in each of those districts.

Early City Board
Pitomnik and its airfield was originally on the City Board as we wanted more zones in between the Don and the RP zones in the city, but before playtesting even started, it was moved to the Region Board. The city is important enough, and we also needed important zones outside the city. The Gumrak airfield would have lost a lot of importance if it had just been a backup airfield; now it's the only airfield on the City Board. Essentially, we zoomed in on the city more than we had originally thought we would.

Originally, the roads extended into and through the city and also acted as borders between zones, but that gave us too few zones inside the city. We also hadn't drawn in the outskirts at this point. The city proper was more important to get right this early in the concepting stage. The roads as borders were based on an idea I had for snipers (see below). There was no Road Movement bonus for Tanks and Mechanized Infantry at this point, so we didn't have to worry about how they would use roads that acted as borders. That didn't last long.

Combat

Nearly the first words out of Larry's mouth on the topic were, "What do you think of using the D-Day combat system?" I loved the idea. I think it's more historically accurate here than in D-Day. Being forced to battle while in a contested zone feels more like the situation in Stalingrad. Stalin insisted on constant attacks, and the Germans were desperate to take the city before winter arrived. Chuikov, the Soviet General in charge of the defense of the city, ordered his units to move in close to the enemy to negate the Luftwaffe advantage. One round of combat creates the prolonged and inescapable fights we wanted to see.

We ended up using Order Cards and the Stacking Limit of 8 everywhere from D-Day as well, but not "Artillery as Air Defense". Not yet.

Final City Board
Snipers

When you say the word "Stalingrad", one of the first things someone will bring up are snipers. Some became famous and heroes of the Motherland!

Snipers originally occupied Sniper Nests and could pick off only Infantry. My original idea was that they would fire at units crossing the red roads that went through the city. Larry pointed out that movement inside the city should be slow as there was rubble everywhere, so the roads were removed. That morphed into having snipers fire at Infantry/Mechanized Infantry that crossed the black borders adjacent to them — for each of the crossings! If enemy units crossed multiple borders, the Sniper would get multiple shots.

This was playtested for quite a while, but eventually the playtesters started to play around this threat. They would mass for a single crossing, then never cross again, or just use artillery and armor. This made it where snipers often got off only a shot or two before being surrounded and destroyed.

The set-up was then changed to what it is now, and the junction points they occupy were also changed to Ambush Sites. They aren't just snipers; they throw Molotov cocktails and place anti-tank mines/traps. Now they fire just once during each reaction phase into any one adjacent zone. This allows them to fire whether the enemy moves or not. They score a hit on a 2 or less, but if they roll a 1, they choose the casualty. This is why it's dangerous to drive Tanks through the city. Tanks hate close range combat, and it doesn't get any closer than the streets of Stalingrad.

Supply

Early on in the concepting, I wanted to use trucks and ferries to carry supply. Trucks worked well in North Africa, but in that game, there are typically 2-3 battles per turn. In Stalingrad, there can easily be ten per round for the first several rounds. It becomes too much to then have to drive your trucks around to resupply everyone.

Larry suggested supply lines instead as he wanted to avoid trucks and ferries altogether. I convinced Larry to give ferries a chance, but I saw his point on supply lines being the better option. In a battle where cutting supply lines became so crucial, it's important to be able to see those lines.

The other difference in supply between North Africa and Stalingrad was the penalty for being out of supply. In North Africa, you can't attack without supply, and must retreat (and survive parting shots) if defending while unsupplied. Retreating was very common in North Africa and is rather uncommon in Stalingrad. We also wanted a surrounded force to be able to hold out for a while, which would never happen if forced to retreat, so a -1 ATK / -1 DEF penalty was adopted. Unsupplied Infantry on the attack would be useful only as casualties. This simulated the lack of offensive action from the remnants of the 6th Army, even as Manstein's Winter Storm forces hoped the 6th Army would make a breakout attempt to connect up with them.

After the first playtest reports came in, the playtesters really liked the ferries, so Larry gave his blessing to use them.

Units

Artillery: These units began playtesting without the Air Defense ability. They gained it after playtesting for a month or two. Originally we had the standard AAA units that fire only at aircraft. Instead, Artillery worked much like Katyusha Rockets do now, but that diminished the cool factor of the Katyushas, and it's always a good idea for new units to make a splash, so I looked to D-Day again and the Artillery now acts as AA and no longer bombards from a distance.

Artillery also had the ability to attack ferries from a distance early on. That did not last long.

Katyusha Rockets: As a new unit, I wanted these to be cheap, but with limited effectiveness. Rocket strategies were attempted many times during playtesting, and we even started keeping track of the hit percentages. These gained Rear Echelon when they were able to spread out too easily to gobble up empty Axis zones. A specialty unit like this, manned by just a handful of soldiers should not be conquering entire zones.

StuG III: Originally, only the Soviets had a new unit, but the playtesters thought that Axis players would appreciate something new. Larry and I had pondered Anti-Tank Guns early on, but decided against it. They weren't as common as you would think there, but there were plenty of StuG III Assault Guns, and that gave the Axis a chance against the Tank divisions of Uranus and the Tanks that rolled off the Tractor Factory assembly line.

Originally, Assault Guns targeted Tanks only while defending. However, we were not seeing enough of them being purchased for Operation Winter Storm, so now they target Tanks full time.

Image: Patrick Ceddia
Victory Conditions

Larry and I agreed that the game should have instant victories. If one side is being completely steamrolled, you might as well put them out of their misery.

Original Axis Total Victory: Capture all of Stalingrad and have a supply line to the west.

We saw too many Soviet holdouts in the bunkers of Orvloka and Spartonovka, which are not part of the city proper, so something had to change. The RP zones are the actual city, so that became the new goal.

Final: At the end of any round, control all RP zones on the City Board and maintain a supply line into at least one RP zone on the City Board.

The Soviet Total Victory changed a lot after a few playtests.

Original Allies Total Victory: After Round 10, no Axis units on the City Board.

Since the Axis wasn't in the city at the start of the longer scenario, we had to put an awkward timer on it, but that unfairly penalized an early launch of Uranus. It also forced the Axis to put more units into the city when the best strategic option might have been to hold out in Pitomnik waiting for the relief forces to arrive.

Final: At the end of any round, control Pitomnik, Vertyachii, and Rynok, and control or contest all zones west of the Don River (the tan area of the Region Board).

The Minor Victory conditions were present at the start of the playtesting.

Original Axis Minor Victory: Control or contest all Stalingrad RP territories.

This ended up being way too close to the Total Victory condition and didn't allow the Axis player to try any strategy other than trying to capture the city. It was also too hard to do for a minor victory.

Original Allies Minor Victory: Control or contest all territories west of the Don.

However, the playtesters did not like the idea of both sides earning a Minor Victory. The turning point of the war should have a winner and a loser.

Final: If neither side can claim a Total or Major victory at the end of the game, the side controlling Pitomnik achieves a Minor Victory.

The Major Victory conditions did not appear until a few months into the playtest.

Original Axis Major Victory: At end of game, control at least one zone on the Stalingrad map and maintain a supply line from there to Tatsinskaya.

Naturally, the playtesters broke this by holding out in Orlovka's bunker, far from the fighting along the shores of the Volga, so they had to control a RP zone instead, but with a supply line to any supply line exit zone.

Final: At the end of the game, control at least one RP zone on the City Board and maintain a supply line into that zone.

Original Allies Major Victory: At the end of the game, control or contest all three zones surrounding Stalingrad west of the Volga.

This was playtested for quite a while, but it was eventually deemed too easy compared to the Axis Major, so it needed something else.

Final: At the end of the game, control Pitomnik, Vertyachii, Rynok, and all six fortified zones on the City Board.

Now the Axis can attempt to hold out in the city to deny the Allies a Major victory, which felt good.

Of course hundreds of changes were made during playtesting that are too subtle to bother mentioning here. I am grateful for the playtesters, several of whom played north of a dozen games. I must also thank Larry Harris for his great early ideas and for offering advice throughout the project. The game was a labor of love, and we hope that you enjoy playing it as much as we enjoyed concepting and testing it!

Matt Hyra