Marita-Merkur: The Campaign in the Balkans, 1940-41

About this board game

Marita-Merkur: The Campaign in the Balkans, 1940-41 is a two-player Europa campaign game with an average play time of 361 minutes. It recreates the fighting in the Balkans from November 1940 through June 1941.

The maps cover the battlegrounds from Austria to Crete, including Yugoslavia, Albania, Greece, and surrounding regions. Terrain includes rivers, woods, rough ground, mountains, karst, swamps, and impassable mountains, giving the campaign a detailed geographic framework.

Six hundred die-cut counters represent the military units of the nine nations involved. Land forces appear as individual battalions, regiments, brigades, and divisions, each with historical designations, strengths, and capabilities. Aircraft are organized into groups of approximately 40–50 planes by type and model, ranging from CR.42 biplanes to Me109s.

• Standard Europa rules for movement, combat, and combat or motorized exploitation
• Special rules for Greek mountain capability, the Yugoslav coup, and British naval interdiction
• The Hungarian Duna river flotilla, plus the Greek and Yugoslav navies for future Europa use
• Order of battle, reinforcement, victory point, weather, terrain, and combat charts

Marita-Merkur can be played as a complete game on its own or combined with other Europa titles. Its components include one and a half maps, three counter sheets totaling 600 counters, a rules folder, and a set of charts covering units, reinforcements, combat, terrain, weather, and victory points.

Released in 1979, Marita-Merkur offers a large-scale recreation of a complex Balkan campaign through historically identified forces and the established Europa game system.