Bismarck (Second Edition)

About this board game

Bismarck (Second Edition) is a two-player naval search-and-combat game with an approximately 240-minute playing time, recreating the British hunt for the German battleships Bismarck and Prinz Eugen in 1941.

Players operate with hidden map-boards and attempt to locate one another across the Bering Sea and North Atlantic. Movement, searches, and combat are handled with counters on a letter-and-number grid overlaid with hexes. Search planes and ships call out coordinates they can see, while a player may choose not to search with a unit to keep its location concealed.

The British must find and destroy the German force, but discovery is only the beginning. A fast ship such as Suffolk can shadow Bismarck without engaging, allowing heavier units—including Hood—or aircraft from Victorious and Ark Royal to converge. Combat uses damage sheets with marked squares representing vulnerable areas of each warship.

• British objective: intercept and destroy the German ships.
• German objective: avoid contact, break out into the Atlantic, raid merchant shipping, or reach a friendly port in occupied France.
• Advanced play: adds weather, realistic ship damage, miniatures-style combat, alternate scenarios, additional ships, and abstractly represented U-boats.

The second edition replaced the original square-grid map with a hexagonal overlay, expanded the German force beyond a single Bismarck unit, and introduced more complex search, movement, and combat systems. It also came in a smaller standard-sized Avalon Hill flat box with alternative cover artwork.

With its emphasis on concealment, pursuit, positioning, and delayed engagement, Bismarck creates a tense naval cat-and-mouse contest in which careful planning can bring a task force together—or let the German ships slip away.