Relive WW2 in Europe from 1939 to 1945. Two to five players, with excellent solitaire suitability.
“Black Swan” is a block wargame with over 200 combat units. A game turn is three months (a season) and there are several three-season Scenarios and two Campaigns (1939 and 1941).
When in 1939 Hitler ordered the invasion of Poland, few in Germany – and probably in the rest of Europe – believed that France and Great Britain would have declared war.
In the previous months Hitler had broken the Treaty of Versailles, by which the harsh conditions imposed had humiliated and starved the German population for years and led to a political reunification of the original German Reich: restored the Rhineland, annexed Austria and invaded Czechoslovakia, with the tacit consent of the other nations, Great Britain and France above all.
So his assumption that he could have done the same with Poland had a logical basis. Instead this time events went another way.
Most European countries had been so devastated by WWI that few wanted another war. Ignoring the German preparations for a renewed war of revenge based on the new Blitzkrieg tactics, France developed an old fashioned concept of static border fortifications – the Maginot Line – and Chamberlain’s Great Britain focused entirely on diplomacy in an attempt to deal in a gentlemen fashion with the rapacious and very ungentlemanly Nazi regime.
Even after the fall of France, which surrendered in a few weeks after a blitz attack across the Ardennes – almost the same move adopted at the beginning of WWI – Great Britain still tried to reach an agreement with Hitler.
This did not happen and Great Britain remained alone, with no American help, and was on the edge of the defeat, having to choose between an unfair peace or the threat of an invasion. It was only one man, the freshly appointed prime minister Winston Churchill – going against any logic and even against his own political peers and the Crown – that wanted to resist, and the outcome of the Battle of Britain later proved him right.
However many months would have to pass before the Soviet Union first and the US later would join the Allied cause to restore peace in Europe, at the cost of millions of deaths….
As the Axis Powers you have to swiftly win the war, either by a Mediterranean strategy to break the British Empire, or an all out effort to demolish the Red Army. If a Decisive Victory is unobtainable, you can still go for a Strategic or at least an Economic Victory.
As the Allies, you must survive the initial onslaught and prepare for a long war of attrition before dealing a deathly blow to the Reich’s body.
I hope you will enjoy Black Swan, and that it will answer some of your questions as well. I look forward to the conversations that will follow its release. (Game board Geek)
Jim (Axis), Lee (Frogs and Soviets) and Richard (Britain and US) test played Black Swan. Numerous rules had to be rechecked, but as a whole, the game is fairly simple once the phases are played a few rounds. In the beginning, the Germans conquered the neutrals in West and Eastern Europe as expected. The French dropped their never fired guns… The Italians and Britain battled to a draw in the Mediterranean with Italy taking Malta and Crete.. British retaking Crete… Germans retaking Crete… The Germans and Italians held Western Africa and the British Tobruk eastward.
The British then refocused their fleet into the North Sea and destroyed the German navy.
The Germans declared war on Russia and blitzed.. the Atlantic wall was built.. Russia was being beaten back but countering many attacks… both the Germans and Russians were suffering heavy losses… the British tried an invasion of Belgium but were repulsed… the British then brought up some serious fire power with a fleet of four heavy naval battle groups and blitzed Belgium again… this time they had a foothold in Denmark and on the blitz rolled into Paris and brought more reinforcements into Belgium… the Axis then conceded the game and Jim committed Hari Kari … we left him in the trash… just kidding.. rolled him into a ditch..
