Assault on Gallipoli: The ANZAC Landing Campaign 1915

About this board game

Assault on Gallipoli: The ANZAC Landing Campaign 1915 is a strategic wargame for 1–2 players, with an approximate playing time of 300 minutes. It recreates the key battles of the Gallipoli Campaign, focusing on the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps sector.

One player commands the Australian, New Zealand, and British forces, while the other controls the Ottoman forces. The board covers the narrow peninsula from ANZAC Cove to Mal Tepe and Khetia Bay, where the ANZAC objective is to capture vital ground and cut off Turkish forces fighting farther south.

Each turn represents one day of the campaign. Units represent battalions, companies, and individual ships, and players take turns activating groups of units in an area. Activated units may move, fire, or dig a trench before flipping to their Exhausted side; at the beginning of the next turn, they return to their Fresh side.

• Play as the ANZAC forces or the Ottoman defenders.
• Fight for strategically important heights including Chunuk Bair and Mal Tepe.
• Manage movement, fire, trench construction, and unit exhaustion.
• Recreate the initial landing and the August attempt to seize the Sari Bair ridges.

The campaign reflects the difficult terrain, strong Turkish resistance, limited Allied support, and repeated Ottoman counterattacks that shaped the historical struggle. New Zealanders and Gurkhas briefly captured the heights during the August offensive, but the position was eventually lost.

Designed by Kieran Oakley and Russell Lowke, Assault on Gallipoli was first published in 2022, with a second edition released by Hexasim in 2024. The game presents a focused simulation of a costly campaign that ended with the ANZAC evacuation after eight months of fighting.