by Michael Eckenfels, 13 March 2025
Tabletop gaming has always been our gateway into immersive stories. How those stories are told differs, of course, from player to player as our perceptions are all different. Some will want grand strategic games from a global level, whereas others prefer more tactical, ‘in the trenches’ type of gaming. Some like all of it. It is certainly a gamut of various games, as good and bad as there are opinions on the Internet. And man oh man, that’s a LOT of both.
click images to enlarge
I am one of those wide-ranging gamers that just sometimes has a preference for one or another, depending on my mood. Sometimes pushing divisions and corps across hundreds of miles feels more finite and fascinating, whereas at other times, I like the idea of sitting in a tank turret or an aircraft cockpit and getting down and dirty with whatever objectives we may have. This game by Lock n Load Publishing called Ju-87 Stuka Ace places players right in the cockpit of the well-known Ju-87 Stuka dive bomber during World War II.
Historical Context and Background
Ju-87 Stuka Ace is set in the years before and during World War II, focusing specifically on the player as a pilot of the Luftwaffe’s feared the Ju-87 Stuka. These aircraft were of course pivotal during the early years of the war, particularly in campaigns such as the Blitzkrieg against Poland and the Battle of France, providing close air support for frontline units and in striking targets that required a more accurate attack, as opposed to level bombers dropping bombs from on high. The game’s design pays homage to these historic events and to the Stuka’s tactical prowess, providing players with a range of missions (both historical and hypothetical) that reflect the strategic and tactical challenges faced by Stuka pilots. The player’s role during the game can be as a simple pilot, or as a leader of other aircraft as well; the campaign game especially allows the player to start a new pilot and try to survive the war.
Components and Production Quality
The components are high-quality material, from the counters to the cards to the binding on the books included in the game. The neoprene player mat that I received as well with this game is a nice touch to help organize and present gameplay. However, there are a few places where the design is somewhat confusing, which I will get into briefly here.
Card Art and Design
The cards are a highlight of the game’s production and drive gameplay. Each card features nice artwork, with detailed illustrations of aircraft, pilots, and battle scenes. The design is both functional and aesthetically pleasing, with clear icons and text that make gameplay smooth and intuitive.
There are 171 total cards included in the game, divided among several categories that drive gameplay – Target, Munition, Action, Altitude, Flight, and Objective Cards. I’ll get a bit more into these later as to function, but as to design, they’re generally pretty great. I say ‘generally’ because there’s a few issues I found with the design that made it difficult to read on some of the Flight Cards; the choice of background along with dark text with a dark shadow (though with a lighter opacity) didn’t help much. It could perhaps just be me, but keep it in mind if you have vision issues. The Altitude Cards likewise sometimes have too much info in some of the boxes, which makes the text smaller and more difficult to read. This isn’t in all the cards, mind you, just some examples of the overall design missing the mark in a handful of cases.
Also, the dark red font for the Card names wasn’t the best choice, in my opinion; it should have been a few shades lighter to make it stand out better, though I’m guessing this chosen shade of red came from the red in the…let’s say the Knight’s Cross ribbon. I don’t know for sure, and again it might not be that big a deal to most players, though to me it stood out.
The 100 counters included in the game are in one counter sheet and are made from thick, durable cardboard material, ensuring they can withstand repeated play. The overall designs and color choices are very pleasing and make it easy to single out any particular one you may be hunting for. These counters represent munitions, targets, damage, and other usual game functions that a player may expect in their wargames. But the quality is top notch, for certain.
In the copy I received for review, there was a neoprene mat included that is called the Pilot Organization Play Card; the design of the mat differs slightly from what is pictured in the rule book, which is narrower in said book. The neoprene mat is about 17” long by 11” tall and is decent quality. The mat pictured in the rules might be a more standard sheet that is closer to 8.5” x 11” in measure and made of the durable material that LnL uses in similar sheets. I appreciate the upgrade but there’s a few things that bothered me about this mat, but we’ll get into that a bit more later.
On this mat/sheet, you place most of your Cards (not all of them, strangely) during play, as well as your Pilot Player Card. There are four such Cards included, on two double-sided sheets. These represent the player’s pilot throughout the game and campaign, and include a Leutnant (Kette Wingman), whom is ‘just’ a pilot that deals with their own plane; a Leutnant (Kette Leader), wherein the player flies their own aircraft and leads two other Stukas; an Oberleutnant (Staffel Leader), which has the player leading a larger group; and finally, a Hauptmann (Gruppe Leader), in charge of the largest possible formation in the game. The first Kette Wingman Card has very little information on it, reflective of the fact that the player is only needing to worry about their own aircraft, whereas progressing through the ranks means a bit more leadership, more aircraft to be responsible for, and therefore, more information to track on each Card.
The Aircraft Reference Cards represent the player’s Stuka in the game. On this Card, the player tracks damage and performance, as well as Wounds to either the pilot or gunner. There is also a bit of history of that particular Stuka model. The fact that there are 18 of these included in the game is impressive as some players may not be aware there were so many Stuka models, yet a few are hypothetical. For example, the A-1 “Anton” China Stuka represents a single Stuka that was sent to Japan in 1938 for their evaluation for carrier operations, but the Japanese ended up developing their own aircraft instead. However, this model represents the hypothetical scenario where a Kampfgruppen of these aircraft were sent for full evaluation. One thing I really like about this game is it doesn’t just delve into historical campaigns, but goes into alternate history as well to an extent. There’s even a nice add-on where you can fly Stukas off the Graf Zeppelin, the aircraft carrier Germany never managed to finish. The additional touches like this really give the game a huge amount of replayability.
Game Manual and Theater Manual
Did I save the best for last, component-wise? Well…the Theater Manual is not bad, laying out all the info you need to fly any of the campaigns throughout (and even before, in Spain) the war. Everything is laid out pretty well and is clear, though I wish there was some tie-in between info presented in the Theater Manual and the game board – namely, a way to track how many Sorties you must fly for a Mission. I’ll get into that, later.
The manual…oh boy, let’s talk about that. I don’t want to roast the game just for the manual, because honestly, it’s not that bad and it’s a good read; the text is large (perhaps a bit too large) and I found myself getting through nearly two dozen pages without really realizing it. Though, I was hung up on a number of minor things, such as using the plural “aircrafts” instead of “aircraft” and the lack of punctuation or words completing sentences. This latter bit is not all that often but it makes for cumbersome reading in places. It also is structured strangely and gives instructions that seem out of place.
For example, the Game Manual spends about 22 and a half pages giving an overview of the components, which is fine, before it gets to telling you how to set up the game. Like I said, it might seem like a lot but given the font size, and if you’re not a grammarian, it’s a quick and good read. About halfway through that component discussion it gets into the Flight Cards, where it gives you specific instructions to shuffle certain cards to get ready for your first game, yet does not give similar set-up instructions on the other cards. It does tell you other instructions, but it feels more like it’s just informational and an FYI rather than a “do this now” instruction. And that’s fine, too, but honestly, it might be confusing to a new gamer. Me, I prefer to read through a manual all the way before I start playing it, so I go right to the Set Up section when I’m done. I want to be able to go right to there and have ‘Step 1, do this; step 2, do that;’ and so on. The manual ends up being a bit more conversational than instructional, which is fine if you prefer that style. I would prefer to be told what to do and exactly how to do it rather than need to hunt through the book to find what I need to do.
There are also errors that I found in the lead-up to the Set Up section, the main one that was most confusing was where it was discussing the sequence of play in that component discussion section. For one, it felt like that should follow set up, but maybe that’s just me. For another, it had instructions to draw ‘Mission Cards,’ which do not exist. When you’re learning the game, you’re going to be very confused by this until you realize it meant Flight Cards, not Mission Cards. Then it describes drawing a card from the “Target Deck,” which is also incorrect; you draw from the “Objective Card” deck. The Target Deck is what you draw from to get your target before you even start flying.
Here’s the thing. I’m not a fan of this manual, obviously. Yet, I am a fan of this game, and think if you feel that the gameplay is great enough, you can get past this and learn it easily. There are some good videos online too that spell it out easily enough and is probably a better place to go if you do get confused with the manual’s flow. This game does what Storm of Steel did not do – namely, give you a chance to fly throughout the war, rather than just on the Eastern Front (which is what Storm of Steel does – and does well, mind, but it’s not quite what I was hoping for in having a full pilot career, whereas this one, Stuka Ace, does this quite well).
That said, let me lay out some positives. There are some great historical notes included near the end over several pages, and an extended example of play that is very helpful. The large(ish) print does cause it to take up a total of 86 or so pages, but it doesn’t feel like that overall. Usually I’d shy away from any manual so large, but even given the things about it I do not like, there’s a lot of things to like about the Game Manual, as well.
Gameplay Mechanics
Stuka Ace is a solitaire game, placing the player in control of a single Stuka pilot over a series of missions. The game is driven by a combination of card play and dice rolls, with each mission presenting unique challenges and objectives, which can change from campaign to campaign or even Mission to Mission.
Flight Management
As a Stuka pilot, and eventually as a leader of several other Stukas, you get to control several things – bomb load, altitude, how to dive on a target, and various other things, giving you a lot of control over how your Missions take place – a nice touch, and a standout feature in this game.
Most key moments in a Mission are governed by Actions and Checks. These are labeled in the game with a hashtag followed by the Checks you must make. For example, when you take off, you have to perform a #TAKEOFF Action, which requires you make a “d12 roll” (I’ll get into this in the next section) to determine success. Other Actions, such as dogfighting, conducting your bombing runs, diving, climbing up out of a dive, and other such moments are all controlled by this system. And, there are helpful Player Aid Cards (PACs as the game calls them) that spell out what needs to be done for each such Check.
However, I wish the PACs were a bit better as a lot of the modifiers are listed as something like “-? Visibility” or “+/- Target Modifiers.” The actual modifiers themselves are located in various places such as in the Game Manual or on the Aircraft Card or in other places. This is not that big a deal once you know what you’re looking for, but when you’re learning the game and you try to do the #DIVE action and need to know the modifiers for Visibility, Formation, and Altitude, it would be helpful to have a reference to where this could all be included. Or better yet, it would have been great to have a Player Aid sheet with nothing but modifiers listed upon it so the player doesn’t have to hunt for this info.
Resolution System
The resolution system in Stuka Ace requires the player to use a combination of cards and dice to resolve locations, weather, attacks, and other Actions, via the aforementioned Checks, with different results based on factors such as altitude, weather, and enemy defenses. Once you have the system down, it is fast-paced and captures a good amount of intensity with the dangers of aerial combat and operating these precision machines, though when the player is learning, it might be a bit of a slog to get through how things are done. However, as I’ve mentioned, the rewards are worth it in the experience of the game itself.
The resolutions of the Checks I mentioned above come from die rolls and the Flight Cards deck, which has a section at the bottom of the card for “d6” and “d12” rolls, with a printed die roll result for both displayed. At times, the Game Manual tells you to “roll a d6,” which I think is its way of saying, “draw a Flight Card and resolve a d6,” which it should be clearer about. It should say, for example, ‘draw a d6’ or ‘draw a d12,’ or ‘roll a d6’ or ‘roll a d12’ and be consistent…and indicate this clearly in the Rules Manual. I had hesitation at times, wondering if I draw or roll a result. If I roll instead of drawing, does that mess the game up? Because the d6 / d12 card draws, those are of course finite in their results as they are coming from a deck of cards, whereas an actual d6 or d12 roll will give you infinite results for those dice. This mechanic could have used a bit more clarity but that might have just been me being a block of wood, who knows. Be quiet, Editor.
Mission Variety
The game impresses greatly by providing diverse array of missions in 41 total Target Cards, ranging from bombing runs against generic targets like tanks or headquarters, to specific missions such as attacks against Sevastopol fortresses. Each mission is crafted to offer a unique challenge, requiring players to select their bomb load carefully as well as their altitude and formation of the player’s and other Stukas (when you get to that point in the game) adapt their strategies and make use of their aircraft’s capabilities.
The missions, as I mentioned earlier, are easy enough to set up from the Theater Sheets provided. Each Theater, such as Poland 1939, lists a number of Missions (in Poland’s case, there are five). Instead of actually representing a specific Mission, instead, think of these as a type of mission; some Missions require more Sorties, or have a chance of enemy fighters and/or friendly fighter coverage. The actual target you fly against is drawn from the Target Cards deck and each such Card has its own unique ordinance requirements and amount of damage required to destroy. In a way, having multiple Mission ‘types’ available is something of a multiplier for unique Missions you can fly. For example, in that Poland 1939 campaign, there’s the five Mission ‘types,’ and you draw a Target Card. That Target you fly against, such as the Gun Emplacement, means five different Missions, technically, for that one Target.
Mission Execution
When flying a Mission, you get the information from the Theater Sheet in the Theaters book. Each Mission requires a certain number of Sorties, which is an attempt to attack a Target and covers the player flying to the target, executing the attack, and flying back to base. If more than one Sortie is needed, it essentially means the player flies back (provided they survive, of course!) to base and rearms/refuels to go at it again, if it was not destroyed. There are secondary targets too that can be attacked, which just adds to the depth of the game.
Each Sortie is made up of an Approach to Target, a Target, and Return to Base; think of each of these three as phases. The Approach to Target involves drawing a number of Flight Cards from the Approach section of the Mission (e.g., 2) and resolving the Approach portion of the top of the Card. Some have Events that are beneficial, others not so beneficial, and still more have nothing at all. This represents, of course, your approaching the target.
The Target portion of this involves drawing from the Objective Cards deck that you assemble based on the information provided by your Mission. There are a few card types in this deck – Searching, Target Reached, and enemy contact. The Mission states how many of each of these are shuffled together into your Objective Card deck to draw from. In this portion of the Sortie, you draw a card and apply the effects. If it’s a Searching card, you apply any listed effects and draw again, until you get the Target Reached card. Any enemy contact cards are dealt with by either your covering friendly fighters, or by you yourself if you’re unlucky. The draws from this deck are tense; not so much early on in the game where there are fewer cards, but definitely more so later on when there’s several. You never really know when you’ll actually locate what you’re trying to bomb and meanwhile, are open to interception by the enemy.
Once you draw the Target Reached card, then you execute your bomb run. You decide how long you want to dive – the longer you stay in a dive, the more accurate your bomb run but the harder it will be to pull out from the dive. This can prove disastrous for a newbie pilot, choosing to wait until the last moment (like Stuka ace Rudel himself loved to do himself) to ensure your bomb(s) is/are on target…which might happen, but doesn’t help if the player ends up planting their aircraft into the ground.
During your run, you’ll face antiaircraft fire and will face even more tension via the resolution, which I touched on above. When resolving several Actions, including your bomb run, you will have a hand of cards for your Sortie. These are Action Cards, and have a number in the upper right corner and possibly effects that can be applied at certain points (such as a bonus to your #DIVE Check) or immediate effects. The number in the corner represents a value that is applied towards success at a Check. This number is added to a ‘die roll’ draw as mentioned earlier, and both are added together and compared to the success number required. If your value is equal to or greater than said number, it’s a success; if not, something bad usually happens.
Since you only have five cards in your hand for a Sortie, you have to plan very carefully how you will spend them. It’s very easy to burn through them all then have nothing left later in a sortie, though technically you can always draw one card if you need to resolve something and have none left in your hand. However, relying on this is not a great strategy (though it might be your only option at times). You also have a finite resource called Stamina; you start with 5 of these and can spend one to either play another card from your hand to add to the value. Stamina is finite as well and should be spent wisely, especially on Missions with many sorties to them. Stamina is replenished after a Mission and cards in your hand are only replenished during very specific events where the player will be told to do so. Otherwise, these should be considered extremely valuable and used only when a success is truly required!
Replayability and Longevity
One of the key strengths of Stuka Ace is its replayability. The game, as mentioned, includes a wide variety of missions, each with different objectives and challenges. Additionally, the random elements introduced by card draws and the occasional die rolls ensure that no two games are ever the same. This variability keeps the game fresh and engaging, even after multiple playthroughs.
The Campaign Game adds more flavor to the game, where your pilot can earn promotions and awards, and even select more advanced Stuka models once these become available. And yes, just in case anyone was wondering, one can eventually get the anti-tank Stuka variant with the 37mm AT gun pod mounted under each wing. One has not lived until one is chasing down T-34s on the steppes of Russia with this aircraft, but this requires a good amount of luck to have one’s pilot last this long in the game, too.
Historical Notes
The Game Manual includes about eight pages with historical notes on the Stuka and the various models, providing context and background information for the game for those that wish to learn more. These notes are well-researched and informative, enhancing the educational value of the game. There is even an extensive bibliography with several titles, including “Stuka Pilot,” a great read if there ever was any (I’m just saying this in relation to the author, Rudel’s, experiences but not with his political beliefs, which the reader can research on their own should they wish.) The historical notes and bibliography will give you even greater insight into the world of Stukas as well as a bit of exposure to understanding of the events and tactics depicted in the game, making this both a fun and educational experience.
Expansion Potential
Given the success of Ju-87 Stuka Ace, there is potential for future expansions. Lock n Load Publishing has a history of supporting their games with additional content, and fans of Ju-87 Stuka Ace can look forward to the possibility of new missions, aircraft, and gameplay elements being added in the future.
Conclusion
Ju-87 Stuka Ace is a standout title in the world of tabletop wargaming. Despite the Rules Manual somewhat missing the mark for me, the game itself is enough of a draw to make me want to push past that and play it (I usually have very little patience for such things these days, unfortunately). The game’s blend of historical feel, engaging gameplay, and overall excellent components make it a must-have for fans of World War II games in general and aviation games specifically. Whether you’re a seasoned wargamer or new to the hobby, the game’s depth and replayability ensure that it will remain a favorite in any collection, offering many hours of immersive, tactical fun.
Thank you for visiting the Regiment of Strategy Gaming and riding with The Armchair Dragoons.
Rather than list a bunch of social media links, the easiest thing to do is to check out our LinkTree, which connects you to all of our various locales around the web.
You can also support The Armchair Dragoons through our Patreon, and find us at a variety of conventions and other events.
Feel free to talk back to us either in our discussion forum, or in the comments below.
