Iskra

Iskra depicts the Soviet 4th Sinjavino Offensive (or second Battle of Ladoga), the Soviet attempt to relieve Leningrad. On 12 January 1943 Stalin gave the order: “War Game No 5 may commence”. This was the start signal for Operation Iskra (Spark), conducted by the Red Army's Leningrad Front, Volkhov Front and the Baltic Fleet with the aim of creating a land connection to Leningrad and thereby lifting the combined German-Finnish siege. After fierce fighting in 30cm of snow at -30 to -40 degrees Celsius, Soviet forces linked up on 18 January and by 21 January, the front line had stabilized. -After numerous attacks on the German bottleneck at Ladoga, desperately trying to close the gap between the Volkhov Front, commanded by General Kirill Meretskov and the Leningrad Front, under General Leonid Govorov’s command, Soviet muster for a new assault. Confident after the great victories at Stalingrad and Velikye-Luki, the Soviets, once and for all, try to closethe gap and relief Leningrad after being besieged for over 900 days. The German 26th Army Corps, commanded by General Ernst von Leysner, supported by General Carl Hilpert’s 54th Army Corps, found themselves in a meatgrinder.

-Rules and mechanics

Rules are developed from the “Stargard Solstice™” game, released in 2021, making it the 6th game in the WWII Battle Series, all with chit-pull mechanics.

Game length is 10 turns, each turn represents one day.

German units are battalions and Soviet units are brigades and regiments.

-Game components

A full colour map A1 size (594 x 841 mm), (23.3/8 x 33.1/8 in)

Game Rules (16 pages)

286 die-cut 15mm counters

2 Player Aid Cards with charts and tables.

Replayability 8

Solitaire Suitability 8

Complexity 5

This is Game no 6 in the Series.