A&A Blitzkrieg ’40 lasts 10 turns. Each turn, players alternate moving and attacking each other’s forces on the game map, which is divided into hexes. Combat can involve battles between adjacent units, artillery bombardments or air combat and ground attack missions. At the end of each turn, losses are tallied and victory points are calculated to determine which side is winning the contest. Each player turn, each player draws new cards to determine special actions for the future turns and may get reinforcements according to a preset schedule based on the history of the battle.
May 10, 1940. Led by daring airborne operations, carefully planned road march schedules and well-rehearsed river-crossing pioneer elements, the German army attacked the allied armies from the Dutch frontier through Belgium and into France along a 300-mile front. The allied armies moved north into Belgium according to their own plan, hoping to meet the Germans and fight them away from the French countryside - avoiding the devastation of France that characterized the last war. But the expected German attack into central Belgium was just a feint - the main attack was moving through the Ardennes forest, terrain thought by the French to be unsuited to armored forces. After a short but bloody campaign of just a few days, Holland was subdued first.
Then the Germans achieved strategic surprise by crossing the river Meuse opposite the Ardennes at the hinge point of the allied defense with the overwhelming strength of multiple Panzer (tank) Divisions. This move perfectly split the allied armies in two, which resulted in the best-equipped and most mobile of the allied armies being trapped and surrounded in Belgium. The resulting disaster featured the evacuation of the British from Dunkirk, as well as the utter defeat of France and Belgium. In just 6 weeks, the Germans had achieved one of the greatest military victories in history. Can you, as the Allied player, defeat the enemy’s plans and change the outcome? Or will you, as the Germans, honor the past by winning a stunning battlefield success? Get ready to make or change history by playing your part in “A&A Blitzkrieg ‘40 - The Battle for France.”
