Crimea: Conquest & Liberation

About this board game

Crimea: Conquest & Liberation is a World War II operational game for 2–4 players, with sessions taking about 120 minutes. It covers the campaigns fought across the Crimean Peninsula during the war on the Eastern Front.

The game presents the period of Axis ascendancy from September 1941 through July 1942, followed by the Soviet resurgence from September 1943 through May 1944. Its map includes all of Crimea, the Taman Peninsula east to Krimsk, and southern Ukraine from Kherson to Mariupol.

Designed as a low-counter-density, small OCS game, Crimea includes 560 combat units and one 22×34 map. The map uses a scale of 5 miles per hex, while each turn represents 3.5 days. Seven scenarios allow players to begin at different points in the fighting.

• Rite of Passage: the initial German offensive, from 26 September to 26 December 1941.
• Tiger by the Tail: the Soviet counteroffensive, from 26 December 1941 to 1 March 1942; it can be combined with Rite of Passage.
• Eviction Notice: Operation Trappenjagd, 8–19 May 1942.
• Operation Störfang: the assault on Sevastopol, 5 June to 5 July 1942.
• Cross of Iron: the Taman Peninsula campaign, 26 September 1943 to 22 January 1944.
• Sword of Damocles: a Crimea setup for combining with The Third Winter’s 26 January 1944 campaign start.
• The Liberation Offensive: the Soviet reconquest, 8 April to 12 May 1944.

Crimea can be played through its scenarios as a standalone game or added to the OCS title The Third Winter, significantly changing that game’s southern map boundary. Crimea was a 2023 Charles Roberts Award nominee for Best Operational Game and Best World War II Game.