Got to play as the Soviets, attempting to stop a desperate Blitzkrieg to rescue a trapped 6th Army.

Playlist: Unfortunately we played this game at my FLGS, Gigabites, so I couldn’t pick the music. However I am working on an East Front playlist because I am sure I will play this game many more times.

Historical Notes: The game does a good job setting up the situation with the Historical notes in the rule book, the 6th Army is trapped in Berlin, due to a combination of negligence, idiocy and inability to stand up to authority (That last point was a probably a major selling point for most in the Nazi Regime) no breakout from the inside was ever attempted. However the attempt to relieve them did happen, it was just completely unsuccessful, and this game simulates that. The goal is for the German player to end with a unit in supply in a zone that they secretly choose.

The first real war game my dad introduced me to was the Avalon Hill “The Russian Front”, a game my dad and grandfather played to death. Unfortunately that meant that my dad was very good at that game so I have lost the Eastern Front of WWII in almost every single imaginable way. Russians in Berlin in 1942? Yup that’s happened to me. But still I have very fond memories of playing with my Dad and attempting to devise new and unique strategies to stopping him (None of them have ever worked, I’ve never beaten him in a wargame). Eastern Front Games have a very special place to me in my collection because of that.

Basic Mechanics: Donnerschlag plays out over 7-8 turns, where each player alternates playing cards that activate units, by formation for the Germans and by a colored stripe for the Russians. Combat is simple, only one hex is ever involved for the defender, the attacker can have multiple hexes contribute to one combat in an activation as long as the units are active. You calculate combat values (Most units range from 1-2, there isn’t any German “Super Tanks”, the sides are roughly equal in terms of capability, just not organization.) figure out a ratio, apply a couple of quick modifiers (tanks on the offense get one column shift and you get one column shift for having infantry and tanks involved in the attack or defense) and roll a d6 to determine results. A roll of “1” (a bad result) on an Axis Offensive gives the Soviets a chance to pull from a reinforcement cup and a roll of “6”(a very good result) does the same but for the Axis.

There’s very few terrain modifiers, rivers stop tanks and ZOCs (Zone of Control) which is very important for supply purposes, towns and cities give a defensive buff. Movement works similarly with roads giving extra movement, and being important for reinforcements. And to spice it all up you have “Combat Cards” which have a wide variety of effects including assisting you in Combat with a simple modifier to giving you another activation!

TURNS 1-3

The Germans hit the ground running, my opponent didn’t even touch his less proven Romanian Units until turn three, pushing on my lines hard, forcing me to make tough decisions. By the end of turn one he had broken through the first river. I spent a lot of the first turn just scrambling, trying to throw speed bumps in the way of his two Panzer Divisions. I have to say I was already very engaged in the game even by the end of turn one, it really started to feel like the pressure was on.

Turn two and three saw lot of German emphasis on pushing his Panzer divisions to break through the second and third river line, the Germans accomplished the former but were stopped short by the Soviet Turn 3 Reinforcements of the later. This high tempo offense really crippled my ability as the Soviets to build any sort of ad-hoc offensive formations to counter attack. If the Germans ever let up the Soviets can start moving like color units together, putting together suitable forces for counter attack and offense.

As frantic and stressful as this moment in the game felt, I started to plan the end of the game here, I laid a small trap, a single unit holding a very tempting opening to Zone C, with the German Reinforcements soon on the way I figured this might be too much to resist. Going into turn 4 I had left a solid defense in front of the 6th Panzer Division.

TURNS 4-8

The German player chose to wait until Turn 4 to call Donnerschlag and unfortunately not so secretly choose a zone( oops! I had guessed C would be the target anyways) and place the dreaded 17th Panzer Division Reinforcements.

This is when the game took on a whole new tempo. My Gambit almost back fired as his division went rip roaring out of the gate on Turn 4, luckily for me my opponent started to roll a lot of “1’s” on the CRT helping me delay his lightning push towards winning the game.

This part of the game started about 3 hours in, to a game I thought would only take 3 hours (Boy was I wrong!) and both of us were defiantly starting to feel brain fatigue, but I was so into the game I barely even noticed the hours passing by. Donnerschlag does a great job of sucking you into the moment.

I am able to manuever units and cut off the front of the German Offensive, A small pocket of 51st Army units make a big dent in the German rear before getting cut off by Romanian Cavalry division. At this point in the game there’s a giant stack of dead Soviets and there was almost no dead German pieces but that is rapidly starting to change as the Soviet formations begin moving like color together to provide deadly offensive power. My trap started to close but I have to divert important reinforcements to destroying The Romanian Calvary units pressing on the Soviet Left.

The four 51’st army unit take attack after attack, the German player trying to clear the soviet pocket from his rear before relieving his forward units. This gamble doesn’t pay off as he rolls “1” after “1” on the CRT. He can feel his window of opportunity closing fast. I deploy some reinforcements and a Green Stripe task force wipes out the entire Romanian Cavalry division exposing a major weakness in my opponents flank. At the same time the Heroes of the 51st Army finally fall in battle and he pushes the 23rd Panzer up to relieve the 17th, so on turn 7 the German player’s offensive can finally continue.

Going into the last turns of the game I could tell that the momentum had completely shifted into my favor, no longer making large gains the battle turned into a slog, with my opponent taking causality after causality while I kept rotating in new and fresh troops. It turned into a meat grinder, and that is where my Soviets excelled. The German dead pile of counters slowly started to grow and he made one final desperate push, before ultimately falling just one hex short of his objective.

Wrap up: WOW! What a game! Six Hours just flew by, and man was I totally engrossed for every second (except for the 15 minute break I gave my opponent). This game was a ton of fun! Luckily for me my copy came with an upgrade kit so I didn’t have a lot of the problems that some other people had playing the game, and this might be one of my favorite Hex and Counter games I have played in a while. I told my Dad it has definitely shot up to the top of our list of have to play next time we see each other.

My opponent, though very capable in Miniature wargames and other board games, is newer to hex and counter games. Which definitely gave me an edge of experience, but with a couple helpful “This move screws you” from me and some pointers I think he didn’t make any GRAVE strategic errors. However what really did him in was a string of bad rolls, it kind of hurt to see and often with CRT games things will even out, but when speed is of the essence you don’t have time to sit around and roll a bunch of “1”‘s!

Tactical Notes: I think I played the Soviets pretty well. I would definitely like to play the Germans next time around and see if I can use what I learned from this game to my advantage. An important thing to think about is stacking like color units together and getting effective strike forces for the Soviets as early as the German player will let you (I think this important to note since you do have to devote activation’s to slowing down the Germans, I don’t think just focusing on assembling strike forces is a winning strategy for the Soviets).

The key to my win was my C Gambit, he had pushed really close to Zone A, even though I had a lot of units there I don’t think I could of stopped a breakthrough had he thrown all three Panzer Division at the wall, and nothing to swing around and threaten his flanks. I also could have managed my extreme left a lot better, I devoted too many units to tying up an under strength Romanian division and it didn’t help me at in the long run, he had to use every activation he had to keep his main push going, those units would have been better used harassing his rear.

I cannot wait to play this again, I hope it is soon!