Blitzkrieg (game)

The game uses a large hex grid map of a fictional continent dominated by the major powers "Big Red" and "Great Blue", with several neutral counties separating them.

Blitzkrieg was innovative in several respects, including being the first commercial wargame to offer partial eliminations as a combat result, [1] and also the first that did not simulate a specific historical battle.

[2] Game historian Harry Lowood noted that "Players intrigued by the unprecedented array of military options in the game noticed the potential for experimentation, and a few articles proposing optional rules and other variants appeared in The General along with dozens of strategy articles.

By that time, the innovations of the original edition had inspired a new generation of monster wargames, and Blitzkrieg, even with revised rules, was seen as outmoded.

These rules included the use of navies, armies for the small neutral countries, railways, production, weather and guerillas.

"[7] In a retrospective review in The General, Robert Harmon recalled that Blitzkrieg "opened the floodgates to a host of land wargames of increasing complexity and originality."

Harmon thought that Blitzkrieg still offered the player increased opportunities for imaginative play, saying, "The wargamer has freedom of action over a continental areas, with fewer restrictions that War and Peace or Third Reich.

"[4] Wargamer Academy calls it "a good introductory game and also challenging in the advanced and optional rule forms.