Last Thursday marked the 75th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising – alongside the Polish Independence Day, one of the most important dates for our eastern neighbors. The Warsaw Uprising, the military uprising of the Polish Home Army on August 1, 1944 against the German occupying forces in the Third Reich, was to go down in history as the greatest single act of resistance against the Nazi regime. A reaction on which historians and authors are divided today, whether the Polish forces, which were far inferior in terms of material technology, ever had a chance to drive out the occupiers or whether the uprising was doomed to fail from the start. In any case, the Polish author Wojciech Zalewski says in an interview about his upcoming board game Uprising 44 that "from a strategic point of view the Warsaw Uprising never had a chance of success" - nevertheless he devotes his title to the theoretical possibility. But what is Uprising 44 about?

Uprising 44, which is published in two languages ​​(Polish / English), depicts the two-month battles for the Polish capital. It is a card-driven two-person CoSim in which one player takes control of the troops of the Home Army, the other the units of the German Reich occupying the capital. The game plan - typically Wargame printed on a paper folding map - shows occupied Warsaw divided into many smaller districts and zones. Both parties go into this game with different goals. While the player on the Polish side tries to get as large a part of the capital as possible under his control and to keep the morale of the population high, the German troops should try, and so it is unfortunately in a wargame, to use force against the insurgents in the worst case Forcing abandonment. Uprising ´44 is clearly designed as a game, but through the use of historically authentic units and events it has great potential to convey knowledge. In addition to the historically correct initial situation, Wojciech Zalewski also devotes himself to various fictional scenarios. The set of rules is pleasantly compact with just 6 A4 pages, plus scenarios and example trains.

Mechanically, Uprising '44 offers with its MiscA map-driven action point system and classic counter attachments certainly not have something for everyone, but those who are interested in the historical background and are enthusiastic about wargames are definitely allowed to take a look.

Uprising 44 is scheduled to be released in around two weeks by the small Polish publishing house for wargames.tactica i strategia" or the connected webshop at https://taktykaistrategiasklep.pl - Kostenpunkt: 38 euros including postage and packaging.