FALL BARBAROSSA

“The World will hold it’s breath….”

 

 

 

Hi All

Barbarossa… The Release is Nigh!

It has been a short while since I last updated, so may I firstly wish you all a very peaceful, prosperous and Happy New Year.

I have been hard at work with Barbarossa, despite many upsets else where.  The game is approaching completion, with one Soviet Countersheet left to create prior to Generics and of course final scrub on the Rules, Charts, OBs, Counters and the all important at start booklet.

In the rather stylish box will be:

24 or more countersheets covering the Soviets, Germans, Italian, Free French, British, American, Norwegian, Bulgarian, Finnish, Croatian, Hungarian and Romanian Forces involved in the campaign in the east.

20 Maps (2 are strategic in scale for the all important Murmansk Convoys) covering the whole of the European Soviet Union, mating precisely with the northern and eastern edge of Mare Nostrum, and slightly overlapping both Blitzkrieg and Hakkaa Paalle with the Arctic maps tagging on in the very far north. All are laminated in a similar fashion to Singapore, and include the best data we have on the USSR and its western regions at this time.

Rules book showing you how to play the system.  There are minor changes to some elements of the system for ease of play, and a few additions to properly show the challenges of operating in the depths of the USSR.

Soviet, Western Allied, German, Axis Minor nations OBs (for the Grand Campaign), comprising about 350 pages of orders of battle in total.  These provide June 1941-June 1943 orders of battles for most powers, and for those where they are an excerpt, provide the forces you require to fight the war in the East.  The sheer scale of the campaign will be apparent when you examine the massive forces deployed.  In our view, with some 10 man years of research involved, they are currently as good as we can make them.

At Start booklet – this is in development but will include a variety of learning, basic, intermediate and vast scenarios and modules teaching and then leading you, the player, through the depths of the Great Patriotic War until June of 1943.  Within the game are we hope a number of firsts, to include a possible Hungarian/Romanian war (which almsot occurred on several occasions) and a number of smaller campaigns or battle areas which will enable those of you who have limited space to play the war in the east.

Charts – these are close to completion (as usual we leave the paperwork to the last moment to try and encapsulate all the items we need) and will be around 40 sides.

UIC/Terrain Key – this is essentially done although I may at the last minute decided to amend them to minimise content whilst easing interpretation for the player.

2 D10 Dice as ever!

In addition to all of this, the game will be shipped in two possible box lids.  The first is shown here, the other uses the Reich flag as its basis.  No political statement is intended or accepted as a result of the art work.

We will be pushing Barbarossa to press in the next 10-14 working days.  I am extremely sorry for the delays, which are largely my fault as I either was unable to work for personal reasons, or underestimated the complexity of some of the counter art (it is very hard to find a counter across 6 or 8 sheets to back print it!). However things have moved much faster in many ways and the game is actually playable in full at its current state.  Playable would not mean complete, so I will get it finished before it goes to the printers.

In terms of scope and scale, I am not sure anyone has released a game of this magnitude before.  The efforts I and my team of superb researchers and assistants have put in would have to be seen to be believed, starting 10 years ago as a basic research project, and coalescing in the finished game.  I have lost count of the calls, emails, discussions, books, papers, maps, website pages, unit histories, and general histories that I and my team have bought, read and analysed to assemble the product, and as such I am very proud of the sum of the parts in front of me.

 

That said, we need to complete, and it is time to announce retail pricing.

The General’s Edition (including the Arctic Maps until sold out), plus the QM edition in the already stuffed box will be £500 plus VAT, inclusive of shipping.

Pre-order clients who wish to upgrade will pay £120 plus VAT to do so thus saving some more money if they do not already own the Arctic Maps.

 

The Colonel’s Edition will list at £425 plus VAT if in the UK or EU, inclusive of shipping

 

The Lieutenant’s Edition will list at £360 plus VAT if in the UK or EU, inclusive of shipping

 

The Quartermaster’s edition will list at £100 plus VAT if in the UK or EU, inclusive of shipping

 

Thank you all for your support and patience.  It has been a long road but the destination is nigh!
Regards

 

John Bannerman

Director, developer, researcher, coffee maker and artist!