Bastogne and the Battle of the Ardennes

Bastogne and the Battle of the Ardennes is a two-player board wargame about the German Ardennes offensive of December 1944, better known as the Battle of the Bulge. Designed by Jim Dunnigan with graphics by Redmond A. Simonsen, it appeared in 1969 as the free pull-out game in an issue of Strategy and Tactics magazine, and in 1970 Simulations Publications Inc. re-released it as a boxed set. Despite the title it covers the whole offensive and not only the siege of Bastogne. One player commands the Allies and the other the Germans in alternating turns, each turn standing for one day from 16 December 1944 to 2 January 1945, so a game lasts at most 18 turns. Divisions can be broken down into smaller units that move faster but hit less hard, and zones of control are not sticky, a rule that caused debate among wargamers at the time. The Germans win by opening a road north or west, the Allies by holding the towns of Spa, St Vith and Bastogne. Some players found the movement and combat rules too complex, and Dunnigan rewrote them in 1973 as The Ardennes Offensive.