by Michael Eckenfels, 15 April 2021 ~ #UnboxingDay
Konigsberg is a 1-3 player game depicting the Soviet assault on German soil in East Prussia, near the end of the war. The Soviet offensive in January and February of 1945 marked the Soviets crossing into German territory for the first time in almost four years, and was a mad mess of fleeing civilians, desperate German defenders, and swirling battle.
click images to enlarge
This title came out in 2018 and was published by Revolution Games. Designer Stefan Ekstrom designed it to be played, as mentioned, for 1-3 players as it utilizes a chit-pull system, making it very solitaire-friendly. In a 2-player contest, of course, one plays the Germans and the other, the Soviets, while in a 3-player game, one plays the Germans, a second takes on the 2nd Belorussian Front, and the third takes on the 3rd Belorussian Front.
The game comes in a large Ziplock-type bag, which surprised me – I don’t generally like zip bags as they don’t look good on a shelf, but that’s easily rectified with an appropriately-sized blank box that you can order from a lot of different sources online (should you wish).
The back of the cover sheet has a Player Aid card, but it looks like it’s more of an overview of basic concepts.
The Player Aid card is nice, but the Rulebook itself is not all that daunting, to be honest.
Coming in at 12 pages, it’s pretty light, though really only 10 pages cover the rules (the rest are set-up instructions with some player notes as well). Strangely, the TOC is on the back page of the manual, which I guess is somewhat useful in that you don’t have to flip a page to start looking for a particular rule.
The image above from the rule book pretty much shows how it is laid out – two columns, decent-sized print, but no illustrations except for the picture on the front cover and an image of a space from the Turn Track.
The game comes with one counter sheet with a total of 280 counters. They’re all 0.5” in size and the print is quite small; if you have issues with your eyes, you’ll want a magnifying glass handy.
The reverse side of the counter sheet.
Despite the small print, I do like the design and the color scheme of the counters. You’ll note the color strip at the bottom of some of the counters, which helps denote their formation (corps or army).
The map is paper and decently sized at a fairly standard 22” x 34”. That’s perfect for my somewhat limited table space.
Folded out, it looks quite larger than it actually is. Reading the hexside numbers is difficult, again, if you have eyesight problems. But, it’s still a clean, interesting, and simple design that invites interaction, which is a win for me.
A close-up of the game’s namesake, as well as its surrounding terrain.
In the lower left corner, the 2nd Belorussian Front begins the game. Note that Warsaw is down here at lower left, right on the map’s edge, for reference.
The 3rd Belorussian Front starts in the lower right corner.
Some more map details.
The CRT, which is printed on the side of the map, and easily read.
The Turn Track, which looks somewhat complicated, but is actually easy to interpret.
I’ve started setting up a game, with the 3rd Belorussian Front’s units taking the field. The set-up instructions are easily enough understood, but it would have been nice if they’d set up units in ascending numerical order within the formations, to make it easier to find. A separate set-up sheet would be quite helpful in this case.
I look forward to putting this one through its paces as I have a thing for Gotterdammerung-type of games.
Thanks for joining this month’s #UnboxingDay with the Armchair Dragoons and we hope you enjoyed our recon of our recent acquisitions.
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The regiment also occasionally musters on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube, and occasionally at a convention near you, once we’re allowed to hold them again.
I think 1/2 inch counters should be outlawed, LOL! Looks like a great game, but like big counters and I cannot lie. I held off on MMP’s Standard Combat Series for a while for the same reason but eventually bought a few. I will probably break down and buy this eventually as well.