Fierce fight! Smolensk Blitzkrieg

The mechanics here are comfortable to anyone familiar with the chit-pully goodness of Nakamura's classic [thing=19622]A Victory Lost[/thing] with a few twists.

First, five of those chits enter as reinforcements, one a turn starting on turn 4. They'll have other units entering the map at the same time, but the choices they'll give the Soviet player... Where to place them, perhaps near a headquarters already on the map to saturate an area, allowing the Soviet player to better respond to Axis moves.

Second, there's the unique Guderian chit.

Fans of AVL know and love (or hate) the Manstein chit which lets the Axis activate any headquarters.

Well Guderian is a different chap. The Guderian chit counts against the Axis chit total, but it doesn't go in the cup.

"But Citi'," I hear you saying, "The cup or other opaque container ... it must be obeyed!"

Not so for Guderian, who sits on the table until the Axis player decides to play it ... as an interrupt. Whenever another chit is drawn the Axis player can send it back to the cup and activate the 2 Panzer Headquarters using the Guderian chit.

The rules aren't explicit, but it's customary to say "I'm not FINISHED!" when playing the chit.

And yes, the Axis can cancel their own chit.

It's always the 2nd Panzer, but it activates the 2nd Panzer whenever you want. Sure, activating twice in a row is good ... but using it to cancel an undesirable chit, like the supply check chit, is much more interesting.

Fierce, Smolensk is a game you won't "solve" with your first play. Like any good chit puller, there's an element of chance playing havoc with even the best laid plans.

There's a lot to explore here. The biggest challenge is how to manage to form the Bialystok pocket and drive the schwerpunkt forward with only 4 headquarters. Where do you steer that schwerpunkt: Smolensk and Moscow, or Gomel and Kiev? Both?

Did I mention that the Soviet player has agency, they can fight formation of the pocket.. They're not condemned to passively watch events unfold, they actively participate in the game. The Soviet reinforcements and their host of headquarters units gives them the ability to really stymie the Axis advance.

This is a good chit puller, but I find it falls shy of the top tier AVL in excitement. Smolensk spares us the downtime of the STAVKA chit, and it has a more intriguing Manstein chit ... which is good.

Yet while AVL has the Defender is juggling priorities, frantically patching holes while multiple spearheads advance ... Smolensk sees the Soviet reinforcements pouring onto the map quickly establishing a formidable second line of defense based on the great rivers and the Orsha land bridge. True to history, the blitzkrieg grinds to a crawl.

Recommended for anyone who loves AVL style chit pullers, but it's not AVL.

Stand up game. Great system and very engaging game. Components are average.