We brought out the original edition of Panzer Grenadier: Eastern Front in the year 2000, choosing the early battles of the Great Patriotic War as its theme. Scenarios in that game range from June 22, 1941 through early 1942. It proved very popular and sold very well, finally selling out in 2003. An all-new edition will soon be released.

Almost immediately after the first edition's release, though, we got the question: Why not the late-war battles?

This many years later, we're not really sure why any more.

Gamers want the battles of 1944 and 1945 for a number of reasons. There's the anti-fascist streak: In these battles, the Germans are on the run and the Soviets are smashing them. It's always a good thing to make Nazis cry.

But mostly, there's the gear. And Road to Berlin is loaded with heavy gear.

The Germans get Royal Tiger tanks for the first time in the Panzer Grenadier series, plus giant lumbering vehicles like the Hunting Tiger with its 128mm gun and the Hunting Panther. There are the fast Hetzer tank destroyers, too. Road to Berlin has both regular army and Waffen SS pieces, including SS cavalry. There are also pieces for the German home-defense militia called out in the last days of the Thousand-Year Reich.

The Red Army of Workers and Peasants is also loaded with powerful weapons: The JS-1 and JS-2 heavy tanks lead the way, but there are also all sorts of vehicles not seen before by Panzer Grenadier fans: T-34/85, T-70 and KV-85 tanks; SU-76, SU-85, SU-100, SU-122, SU-152 and JSU-152 assault guns. There�s also 122mm artillery for the first time, and Ba64 armored cars.

Returning to the Panzer Grenadier system are the Soviet Guards, the elite of the Soviet armed forces. They bring the modern weapons of 1944 and 1945 plus rocket launchers and a full array of ground forces. We first debuted these in Heroes of the Soviet Union, which will be retired when the last copies are sold, but this is a much fuller treatment.

As for playing surface, Road to Berlin will feature six of the semi-rigid mapboards of the type found in Airborne and Eastern Front. These are new to players of the series, with art by Terry Moore Strickland.

And as will all games in the series, there will be plentiful replay opportunity: 75 scenarios drawn from the battles of 1944 and 1945 on the Eastern Front.

Contains 825 playing pieces

Boxed games are the heart of the Panzer Grenadier game system. Each of them is a "core" game: it has everything you need to play, and you don't need any parts or rules or anything else to play every scenario (complete game situation) in the box.

Science fiction became reality during the Second World War, as scientists and engineers labored madly to bring bizarre new weapons to the battlefield. Secret Weapons is a 64-page book supplement to the Panzer Grenadier series, looking at some of these laboratory products — all of which existed at least on the drawing board, and many of which actually saw service.

Origins Award winning author John R. Phythyon Jr. tells of odd programs like Germany's super-heavy tanks — vehicles like the 180-ton Maus tank and the equally huge Tiger III. None of those actually saw combat, but the world's first anti-tank guided missile, the German X7, apparently did.

Britain's huge tanks are also covered, with the slow and heavy Tortoise and the slow and heavy Black Prince. And there's the awesome Centurion, a design so solid it remains in service in some of the world's armies more than six decades later.

Plus we have flying machines. There are German Fl.282 helicopters (in three versions), Fa.223 helicopters (also in three versions) and the huge Fa.284 helicopter. Plus the P.1003 tilt-rotor aircraft, ancestor of the modern-day Osprey. Finally, German jets make an appearance to lend close support, including the Me.1099 attack plane fitted with a 55mm automatic cannon.

And there's more. The Americans get their Sikorsky R4 reconnaissance helicopter, while the Japanese receive the Ka-1 autogyro. For every Panzer Grenadier fan who's asked for weird science, this is exactly what you've wanted.

For 900 days, German troops ringed the city of Leningrad, trying to capture the Cradle of the Revolution while Soviet soldiers and militiamen fought just as desperately to keep them out. Nazi savagery caused the deaths of well over a million civilians.

Repeated assaults failed, as did Soviet attempts to break the siege. "St. Petersburg," raged Adolf Hitler, "must be erased from the face of the Earth." Not until January 1944 did the Red Army finally drive the Germans back from the city's outskirts.

Siege on Leningrad is a supplement based on the German assaults on Leningrad's defenses, and the Soviet attempts to re-open communications.

Mike Perryman has designed ten scenarios, or separate game situations, based on battles that took place along Leningrad's defensive perimeter.

This module is not playable by itself, but requires ownership of our Eastern Front and Road to Berlin games and Red Warriors and Sinister Forces supplements.

Each scenario has its own card in a spiral-bound booklet, just like the popular North Wind and Alaska's War.

Since landing in Normandy, American soldiers had heard tales of the Siegfried Line, a thick belt of fortifications protecting Germany's western border. By November 1944 they were fighting their way through it, despite ever-growing German resistance.

Siegfried Line is a supplement for the Panzer Grenadier series of games, with 10 scenarios based on these battles. Siegfried Line includes just this booklet; you'll also need to use boards and/or pieces from our Battle of the Bulge, Elsenborn Ridge, Road to Berlin, Cassino '44, 1940: The Fall of France and Eastern Front Deluxe games.

The four years of brutal warfare on the Eastern Front brought the political troops of both sides into front-line fighting. Formed to control civilians rather than fight armed enemies, the Soviet NKVD and the much larger German Waffen SS each committed mass murders in the name of ideology and from simple animal barbarism. Knowing their well-deserved fate if captured, they often fought with suicidal fanaticism.

Sinister Forces brings background articles and scenarios covering these troops and their battles to the Panzer Grenadier game system. It is not playable by itself, but requires Eastern Front to play most of the scenarios, and Afrika Korps or Desert Rats to play all of them. This is a book supplement complete with a full set of die-cut and mounted counters, much like Great War at Sea: Dreadnoughts.

Scenarios take place on the Eastern Front. The SS troops are of generally lower quality than the corresponding German Army pieces of Eastern Front, reflecting the lower standards of training and recruitment for these political formations. Background articles place the scenarios in the full context of the war in Russia.

New weapons also appear. The SS wield huge 220mm mortars seized from the French army in 1940, French-made B1 heavy tanks, B1 tanks converted to carry flamethrowers, Soviet-made T-34 tanks, and new forms of transport: light SPW 250 half-tracks and fast Volkswagen personnel carriers, the famous Kubelwagen.

There are SS units included of high combat value: special pieces and scenarios for the Norwegian ski battalion and for the Finnish SS battalion.

By contrast, the NKVD troops are of generally higher quality than the Red Army�s rank-and-file. Though used like the SS to murder the regime�s opponents, its suspected opponents, and other people for no particular reason, NKVD troopers served longer than their army counterparts and had more training behind them. They usually fought well when deployed against the Germans, but lacked artillery, tanks and heavy weapons.

Gentleman scholar Greg Guerrero, an expert on the Soviet military, provides the background commentary for Stalin�s political army. Both the NKVD �field army� and the elite commandos of OMBSON are covered as is the Soviet partisan movement, with new counters for Partisans and scenarios for their use.

Japanese troops landed in northeastern New Guinea in July 1942, and quickly began a march over the Owen Stanley Mountains toward the vital anchorage and airfield at Port Moresby on the southern coast. They ran into Australian infantrymen of the 39th Militia Battalion, starting a three-month campaign waged in some of the world`s most treacherous terrain. The Kokoda Campaign is a complete boxed game in the Panzer Grenadier series.

This supplement to Panzer Grenadier features 40 new scenarios focusing on the battles of September, 1939, between Poland's courageous defenders and hordes of German and Soviet invaders. This module is not playable by itself, but requires ownership of Eastern Front and Road to Berlin to enjoy all of the scenarios.

World War II began when German tanks rolled across the border of Poland on September 1st, 1939. The Poles fought back courageously, blunting several attacks, but the force of numbers and superior weapons drove them back toward Warsaw.

On the 14th, a Polish counter-offensive broke down after hard fighting, as the slower Polish infantry divisions found themselves out-maneuvered by the faster German panzer formations. Still fighting, the Polish armies fell back toward the southeast to await their Allies' offensive, but on the 17th the Soviet Union launched its own treacherous attack. Fighting would continue into October, but the Polish state was doomed.

White Eagles is a 76-page book supplement to the Panzer Grenadier series, focused on the battles of September 1939, between Poland's defenders and the German and Soviet invaders. There are 40 new scenarios depicting both sides on the attack, battles of cavalry against cavalry, and even a tank battle or two. Plus of course background articles on the armies and weapons involved. This module is not playable by itself, but requires ownership of Eastern Front and Road to Berlin to enjoy all of the scenarios.

White Eagles includes 165 die-cut and mounted playing pieces. Almost all of them represent Polish forces: tanks, cavalry, armored cars, infantry, machine gun, mortar, anti-tank, artillery and of course leaders. The book's format is the same as our very popular Sinister Forces and Fronte Russo books.

A scenario book expanding the Battle of the Bulge and Elsenborn Ridge games of the Panzer Grenadier series. Contains 30 scenarios addressing the SS attacks on Bastogne, and Kampfgruppe Peiper’s drive. In addition to the fixed scenarios is a multi-scenario campaign detailing the 4th Infantry division's drive across France and into Germany.

Elsenborn Ridge and Battle of the Bulge are needed to play.

When we brought back the classic John Prados' Third Reich in 2001, we always intended that it be followed by a sequel covering the Pacific Theater with the same game system and at the same scale. We brought out Great Pacific War in 2003, and the next step seemed clear: a player's guide with extra units and scenarios, plus strategy hints.

The book comes with 120 die-cut and mounted counters, just like those in the games themselves.

There are new scenarios covering two very real possibilities that never occurred: a 1936 war between France and the Soviet Union following the Nazi occupation of the Rhineland, and a 1946 war between East and West. Two smaller scenarios concentrate on the Spanish Civil War and the Japanese invasion of China.

And we have variant rules. One set gives Spain and Turkey their own player, who controls both countries but does not have total freedom of action. And then there's the one players have demanded since the day we released John Prados' Third Reich: jet fighters. New jet fighter counters for Germany, Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, Italy and Japan. Sporting the lovely graphics you've come to expect of the Me262, Gloster Meteor, Nakajima Kikka and more. A set of variant rules now requires that major powers build their jets once the science becomes available, rather than receiving an instant upgrade, and the technology can be captured.

There are new political markers included, allowing Germany to develop advanced submarines, V1 and V2 missiles, and the atomic bomb. The German player has to pay a stiff economic and military price for such science, however. There are V1 and V2 unit counters, too.

Drawing on the tradition of the original edition, we've also added a set of pre-war options players can add to spice up their games: Italian and Polish re-armament, the German Z-Plan, Japanese tank development, a Republican Spain, hard-fighting Austrians, Soviet naval development and more.

The book's centerpiece is a series of strategy articles, analyzing the positions of every player in both the separate games and the combined scenarios. There are also guides to key concepts like economic warfare. At $24.99, all players are going to want this added bonus to their fun.

Up to five players take the roles of the different factions striving to control Russia after the Tsar's fall as the lavish production quality of Soldier Emperor meets the Russian Civil War in this newest game by William Sariego (Defiant Russia).

Between 1918 and 1921, violent upheavals wracked the former Russian Empire. Communism, monarchism, nationalism, anarchism and many other -isms vied for control of the Tsar’s domains. When the war finally ended, the “Red” faction emerged victorious, but it was a hollow victory. Economic output had fallen by 96 percent compared to 1913’s figures, agriculture was down by 63 percent, and $35 billion worth of damage had been done. Millions had died; to this day no one is exactly sure how many.

In Red Russia, designer William “Defiant Russia” Sariego takes the popular game system from Soldier Kings to this decisive moment in history. Players represent from two to five factions: the Reds (Communists), Allied Interventionists, Siberian Whites (monarchists), Southern Whites or Northern Whites. The game is played in turns representing a season of the year (three months). It begins with the summer turn of 1918, and ends with the conclusion of the spring 1921 turn. A full game without an Automatic Victory is thus 12 turns long.

Players command infantry and cavalry armies, and for some factions fleets and aircraft. The Allied Interventionists also have a tank unit. Leaders assist these units in movement and combat, ranging in quality from Wrangel of the Whites and Trotsky of the Reds on down to the hapless Sergei Kamenev of the Reds.

As with the “Soldier” games, the map is divided into land areas and sea zones. Armies move on land, fleets at sea. Each land area is rated for the amount of money and manpower it generates each turn. Manpower represents not just fresh recruits for your forces, but also the things made with human labor: food, uniforms, weapons and so on. Money is, well, money. You expend manpower to rebuild your forces, and money to finance their actions. Thus you need to hang on to areas that generate these resources for you, and take them from the other guy.

You do that by defeating enemy armies, and besieging enemy areas. Combat is conducted by rolling dice, one for each attack factor. These hits must be sustained by enemy armies by reducing them in strength, or eliminating them. A good general lets you roll more dice. Each area is rated for its garrison strength; to capture it, you have to defeat the garrison troops through siege (in addition to driving off any enemy armies there). The procedure here is very similar.

Throwing a twist into all of this are random events, shown through the 55 high-quality playing cards, by far the best we've ever put into one of our games. The universe is loaded with random elements; life does not unfold as an orderly series of “phases.”

The U.S. Navy began its counter-offensive against the Japanese in August 1942, with landings on the islands of Guadalcanal in the Solomon Islands. The Japanese struck back in turn, and fierce naval battles raged in Ironbottom Sound by night while aircraft carriers dueled by day. The Americans and their Australian allies steadily fought their way up the Solomons chain until the Japanese base at Rabaul was finally isolated in June 1943.

South Pacific is a complete Second World War at Sea boxed game based on the Solomons Campaign of 1942 and 1943. It covers the naval battles of Guadalcanal, the carrier battles of the Eastern Solomons and Santa Cruz, the surface battles of Vella Gulf, Empress Augusta Bay and Kolombangara, and much more.

South Pacific includes over 1,000 silky-smooth, die-cut playing pieces representing the ships and aircraft of the United States, Japan and Australia that fought in the campaign. The 22x28-inch map includes all of the Solomon Islands plus the surrounding seas, and overlaps with the maps from our Strike South game on its western edge.

Unique in the Second World War at Sea series, South Pacific includes not only the standard, generic Tactical Map but also a special Tactical Map showing “Ironbottom Sound” north of Guadalcanal, where so many Japanese and American ships and sailors would be lost.

There are over 60 scenarios, organized in our popular “story arc” format that weaves the narrative of the campaign into the scenarios, allowing them to tell the story of this pivotal series of battles.

Expansion set for the world's best-known board wargame. New central asia map, additional counters and new game variants.

Rumors of War is a new expansion for either or both games, with a map stretching from the eastern edge of the Third Reich Deluxe Map to the Ural Mountains, and adding Iran, Iraq and the Persian Gulf on its southern edge. It's at the same size and scale as the Deluxe map, with new objectives and countries to conquer.

There are also 80 die-cut-and-mounted playing pieces, with the Iraqi and Iranian armed forces, Russian nationalists, Irish, Latvians, British, Italian and Soviet marines, German cavalry and mountain troops, Indonesian nationalists, atomic bomb markers and much, much more!

David Meyler brings us variants for Iran, for Romania as a major power, and of course for more things Dutch. Jeff Adams gives us strategy tips for Operation Sea Lion, Tim McBeth makes the dismal science of economics exciting, and William Sariego looks at island-hopping strategies and the French war effort.

Rumors of War is not playable by itself, but instead brings more fun to your gaming table with either or both of Third Reich and Great Pacific War.

64-page book