Robot Barbarossa: Russian Front 1941

This would be a very conventional 11 hexes Warsaw to Moscow monthly turns corps-to-army level Barbarossa game ... except for its either-way solitaire and unknown OVERALL Russian tank and strengths and order of battle mechanic, which can throw either Axis or Russian plans and play to the wind.

Before the game, you sort the Infantry and Tank units into 3 separate upside-down/secret arrays each and pull one each out (not knowing which one) so you have left (for each branch):

a Strong + Weak = Medium - "Historical," sort of :-) - overall or a Medium + Weak = Weak overall or a Strong + Medium = Strong overall strength.

OR you can just blindly Bell-Curve select 36 (of the 54) Russian rifle/infantry armies and 18 (of the 27) tank/mechanized korps and tally up their strengths at the end of the game to find out how strong over all they were.

Of course, in one game the tanks may be Strong and the infantry Weak, etc., etc. And even a live Russian player doesn't get to know his overall infantry strength until the game is over ... although after the 4th or 5th month he may have a good idea.

At the end of the game when the strengths are discovered (and/or suspicions confirmed) compensatory victory points are awarded if the Russians are found to have been Strong or Weak in their rifle/infantry and/or tank forces.

The point of this being that the Axis historically didn't know the overall strength(s) of the Russian units when they invaded - how hard to push and take risks - and an Axis (or Russian) player shouldn't in a Barbarossa game either.

There are 3 army group - Army Group North, Army Group Center, and Army Group South - and front - Northern, Western, Southwestern - sectors, to keep the robots' advancing/attacking and defending operations in line. A team can therefore be as many as 3 (cooperating) players.

It still can be a good little 2-player (or 2-team) game or you could even have the game play itself and move the pieces for it. :-)

(Writing the rules - Robot Directives - for a solitaire hex-and-counter game is VERY challenging ... a designer's holy grail.)

If you are the/a "live" Axis player, watch out for the 2-factor ("T-34&KV-1") Russian mechanized corps, which by the rules take down the German panzerkorps in the exchanges - even on an X/2 result - and you don't know whether you'll be facing 2, 4, or 6 of those. :-)

Note the stand-up mechanized korps pieces for "live" Russian players.

—description from the designer