Stalingrad: Verdun on the Volga

About this board game

Stalingrad: Verdun on the Volga is a two-player game about the two-month struggle for control of the 30-kilometer-long industrial town on the west bank of the Volga River. Designed for a play time of approximately 180 minutes, it lets players re-fight one of World War II’s most important battles in a single evening.

The game is divided into several two-player scenarios based on the historical German offensives of September and October. Turns represent four days of historical time, giving the battle a focused scale while preserving the pressure of the campaign. A victory point check at the midway point can help keep games under three hours.

Units are represented at roughly regimental scale, with some battalion-sized formations, while opposing formations use battalion scale with some company-sized units. The system uses only three unit types, keeping the military picture clear while highlighting the distinct roles present in the battle:

• Infantry
• Armor
• Pioneers

Stalingrad: Verdun on the Volga uses Rinella’s favorite area impulse game system to model the shifting struggle for the city. Its treatment of German combat attrition is designed to be accurate, drawing on recent publications that use post-Cold War Soviet sources, primarily the work of Glantz.

Released in 2016, the game offers a compact historical examination of the German offensives through multiple scenarios, a defined unit scale, and a battle structure built around four-day turns.