Board Game - The Awakening of the Bear

The Awakening of the Bear is a tactical wargame depicting Operation Barbarossa and its opposing sides: Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union. This is the first box of the Conflict of Heroes series, recognized as one of the best in... the military historical board game industry. The second edition of The Awakening of the Bear has firmly established itself in the global top and is one of the highest-rated games on the Great Patriotic War. Now before you is the third edition - improved, with refined rules and design. You can expect sixteen completely different scenarios and a deep immersion into the events of the first months of that dramatic period in history.Like all wargames, The Awakening of the Bear is, first and foremost, a story generator. A Red Army unit defending a village against superior enemy forces. A tank battle with its small victories and defeats weaving into a single picture. Snipers hiding in the deep forest and setting an ambush for an enemy column. All this is just a few moments from the many episodes that arise in various scenarios. The game invites us to dive headfirst into the defense of Mtsensk, to become a participant in the battle near Mogilev, or to save General Petrov from a wild bullet and lead his troops out of encirclement.When entering the territory of glass-covered fields, talking about such a topic as available rules often becomes irrelevant. One needs to read sixty pages, and from this volume, the average player might not understand almost anything, and the first games will be torturous unless there are comrades who support this adventure and refrain from deserting from the table to avoid suffering. The Awakening of the Bear graciously welcomes any player, offers its solo supplement services if needed, and seems to say: "Thirty minutes for you to read the first chapter, and I’m waiting for you in the first scenario. Let's start having fun, and I’ll tell you the rest along the way." There are no unnecessary rules; everything works quite clearly and logically, and if problems arise during the game, a well-organized reference guide comes to the rescue.Each turn consists of exactly one action — you won't wait long for your turn. Yes, one scenario can take about three hours, but afterwards, you'll have the feeling that you truly did something during those several eventful hours rather than just watched someone else play half a game. On your turn, you can move a unit to an adjacent hex, attack a target, regroup forces in an attempt to restore a damaged unit, or play a combat card. The complexity of the terrain affects any maneuver, and after each action, the unit must pass a fatigue check by rolling a die.This mechanic adds tension and often creates dangerous situations. Your unit may go out from under the protection of the forest and... stop, unable to act further. However, isn't this what happens on a real battlefield when a commander loses contact with headquarters or a march through the forest turns out to be too difficult for insufficiently trained and rested soldiers?The influence of randomness may not appeal to those who favor total control and masters of calculation, but there are also ways to reduce the risk — for example, you can spend command points to protect your unit from checks before the most important attack. In general, in the larger picture of the game, the results of rolls even out, and the most skilled commander will still win — either by destroying the enemy or by earning victory points for accomplishing the objectives set by the scenario.With each new mission, the game will become more diverse. Combat vehicles will appear, soldiers will learn to hide from the enemy's eyes, be able to carry out artillery strikes, storm heights, and fire at enemies from machine guns. The deeper you delve into the scenario book, the more details will be available — meaning that more intriguing game situations await you during the game. In The Awakening of the Bear, you can play a considerable number of times before the stories become boring. And if that does happen, simply polish it up with the Scenario Generator and head to the content Valhalla.In terms of design, The Awakening of the Bear stands out noticeably from many other wargames. Beautiful functional boards, dense textured maps, large thick tokens with markings that won’t require you to squint through a magnifying glass. And all this is packed in convenient plastic trays! In short, there's a lot to admire.