The Coldest Winter

The Coldest Winter is a card-driven block wargame about the military conflict between the Soviet Union and Finland between November 1939 and March 1940. The conflict is better known as the Winter War as it happened during an extraordinarily cold winter.

The game emphasizes military operations on a strategic level using block game pieces to obscure the information on the block labels to simulate the fog of war.

The game also has a political layer to reproduce the international atmosphere as the eyes of the world were fixed on the war. Both nations must keep an eye on their Morale status as if it falters, it may hinder their number of actions per turn.

In addition, Finland has to manage its dwindling resources as it was not prepared for a full scale Soviet offensive after just a few decades after the nation gained its independence and fought a civil war. The Soviet military on the other hand was not prepared to encounter such fierce resistance and to fight in such harsh weather and terrain. The Soviet Union has to reform its military to readjust to these matters.

The game revolves around two unique 45 card command decks, one for each player. Each command card has an event and command point value to activate units and perform strategic actions. Both players also have two special unique decks of 5 cards to represent the international support for Finland and the reformed military approach for the Soviet Union. Both special decks contain what-if scenarios in addition to historical course of events.

—description from the designer