WOG: Holdfast, Russia 1941-42, Board Game

This is a great little block wargame covering the first two years of the German invasion of Russia, 1941-1942. If you're not familiar with the genre, block wargames make all your military units, pieces, into small wooden squares. They stand on their ends with the unit information on one side and the other side blank. This way your enemy doesn't know what you have until he/she actually attacks that unit. It's a great system that has been used in many classic wargames.The brilliance of Holdfast: Russia is to make the whole system much, much simpler. Stacking is only 1 block per square, the rules are very basic, a quick read through by an experienced player will have them up and running in 30 minutes. A beginner might find this game a bit trickier (it's harder than Settlers of Catan!) but it's truly easy to digest.Holdfast: Russia also offers up an innovative system to simulate blitzkrieg. Units may move and fight in ANY order (although only once for each action). So you can have a couple of units attack, destroying the front line of your enemy, and then have 2 or 3 more units move through the hole and attack again. This creates an exciting and fluid war of movement (sometimes).I give Holdfast: Russia 4 stars rather than 5 for two reasons: One, its appealing simplicity also means that it is a trifle unrealistic in places. No big deal, but this is not a perfect simulation of the campaigns. Two, Worthington is not a big company and the components are just a bit spare. The blocks and stickers that go on them (yeah, like all these games you have stick them on yourself) are solid, but the game map is not mounted and the art on it is workable rather than beautiful. However these are minor quibbles for a really lovely little game.

Great simple but challenging war game.