Bitskrieg Rulebook

Table of Contents

Table of Contents

• Components
• Set-Up
  • Step 1: Create the Battlefield
  • Step 2: Choose Your Tanks
  • Step 3: Deployment
  • Step 4: Flags
• Taking Your Turn
• Moving
• Firing
  • Step 1: Range Counting
  • Step 2: Range Roll
  • Step 3: Damage Roll
• Flipping Finished Tanks
• Rebuilds
• Victory
• Advanced Rules
  • Handicapping
  • Reserves
  • Flank Armor
  • Bounding Fire
  • Stun
  • Reverse Movement
  • Ramming
  • Destroying Obstacles
  • Terrain

Components

Bitskrieg is played with a board, some counters, two dice, and these rules.

• Board: an 8 x 8 grid, much like a checkerboard. Many squares carry dice symbols, which are used when placing Obstacles and Flags.
• Tanks: each player has twelve Tank counters in four classes:
  • Light Tanks (LT): the fastest, but weakly armored.
  • Medium Tanks (MT): good all-around, middle-of-the-road tanks with no real weaknesses or advantages.
  • Heavy Tanks (HT): slow, but well armed and well armored.
  • Tank Destroyers (TD): no turret, a powerful gun, but weak armor.
• Flags: each player has two Flag counters. The enemy tries to capture them.
• Rebuild counter: each player has one Rebuild counter, used to replace Destroyed Tanks. It may be used no more than twice per game.
• Obstacles: six double-sided Obstacle counters showing three types of Terrain. The Terrain types have specific effects only under the Advanced Terrain Rules (section 10). In a first game, or whenever you want to keep things simple, treat all Obstacle counters as generic Obstacles, which block Range Counting and prohibit Movement.

Each Tank has three ratings:

• Speed: the number of squares the Tank can enter in a turn.
• Fire: the number of dice (1 or 2) the Tank rolls when attempting to Destroy an enemy Tank.
• Armor: the number the enemy must roll higher than to Destroy it.

The front, full-color side of each Tank counter shows the Tank on its ready side. The reverse side shows the Tank on its Finished side, indicated by a black-and-white Tank icon. The Speed and Fire ratings are missing from the Finished side, as a reminder that a Finished Tank cannot move or fire.

A line on each counter shows the direction the Tank is facing, which matters for Movement and Combat. The blue Tank faces left and the red Tank faces right.

Set-Up

Set-up consists of the following steps, performed in this order before every game.

Step 1: Create the Battlefield

Each of the six Obstacles is placed on the board one at a time. For each Obstacle, one player rolls both dice and then passes them to the opponent. The roll indicates the square in which the Obstacle is placed: the first die corresponds to the first dice symbol on the square, and the second die to the second.

For example, if you roll a 1 and a 3, place the Obstacle in the square whose dice symbols show a 1 and a 3.

If a roll would place an Obstacle on a square that is already occupied, disregard the roll and roll again, until all six Obstacles occupy different squares.

Step 2: Choose Your Tanks

From the twelve Tanks available, each player secretly selects five. Keep your selection hidden from your opponent. Wait until both players have made their selections before moving on.

Step 3: Deployment

One of the players chooses an Axis: the two opposite edges of the board, each of which will serve as a Home Edge for one of the players. The player who is younger may choose the Axis, or each player may roll a die, with the higher roller choosing.

The other player then chooses which of those two edges will be her Home Edge. She is the First Player. She places each of her five Tanks on a square of her Home Edge that has no dice symbols (her military base). Each Tank must occupy its own square and may face any direction she chooses. Her opponent, the Second Player, then sets up her five Tanks in the same way on squares of her own Home Edge (the edge opposite the First Player's).

Step 4: Flags

The First Player places her two Flags on the board. Each Flag must go on a free square showing dice symbols. The two Flags cannot be placed in the same row or column. (The English text also specifies that Flags cannot go on an edge square or on an Obstacle; the Russian copy does not state this separately.) The Second Player then places her two Flags in the same way.

Each player places her Rebuild counter on the "2" space of the Rebuild track on her side of the board. Then the First Player takes the first turn of the game.

Taking Your Turn

On your turn you have four choices. You may:

• Move one of your ready Tanks.
• Fire with one of your ready Tanks.
• Flip all of your Finished Tanks to their ready side.
• Rebuild one of your Destroyed Tanks.

Once you have carried out your choice, your opponent takes her turn. Players alternate in this way until one player wins by either:

• Capturing both of the enemy Flags, OR
• Destroying all of the enemy Tanks.

Moving

Tanks on the board always face an adjacent square, as indicated by the line on the counter and the direction in which the gun points.

When a ready Tank moves, it may move a number of squares equal to its Speed, but only forward. On entering each square, a Tank may (but does not have to) turn ninety degrees to the left or to the right, changing its facing.

The blue Light Tank in the example can enter three squares. It moves one square, turns ninety degrees, moves two more squares, and then turns ninety degrees.

A Tank may turn without moving, or may turn before it moves into its first square. Either of these counts as one square entered, and so reduces by one the number of squares the Tank may move in that turn.

• A Tank cannot enter a square containing an Obstacle or an enemy Tank.
• A Tank may enter a square containing a friendly Tank or a friendly Flag, but cannot stop there. It must "pass through" and end its move in another square.
• If a Tank ends its move on the square of an enemy Flag, that Flag is Captured for as long as the Tank remains there. If the Tank moves out of the square or is Destroyed, the enemy Flag is no longer Captured.
• To win by capture, you must occupy the squares containing both enemy Flags at the start of your own turn.

After finishing its move, flip the Tank to its Finished side, keeping the same facing. A Finished Tank may never move.

Firing

When you Fire with a ready Tank, you must choose an eligible enemy Tank as its target. A Finished Tank may not Fire. Firing consists of three steps: Range Counting, a Range Roll, and a Damage Roll.

Design note: the Range Roll and the Damage Roll may be made simultaneously to save time if the players have dice of different colours.

Step 1: Range Counting

Count the squares from your Firing Tank to the enemy Tank to determine the Range to the target. Do not count the square the Firing Tank is in, but do count the square the enemy Tank is in.

Count from square to adjacent square, either orthogonally or diagonally, in any direction, as long as the squares are in front of your Tank and are not blocked. Draw an imaginary line through the front edge of your Tank. Anything on the far side of that line is in front of your Tank. Put another way, if your Tank faces right, then all the squares to the right of the row or column the Tank occupies are in front of it.

The blue Light Tank in the example can fire on any of the three red Medium Tanks. The topmost Tank is three squares away instead of two, because the Obstacle prevents counting diagonally.

You may count squares by any route you like, but the greater the number of squares, the harder the target will be to hit. Always imagine the Tank firing directly at its target.

The green squares are in front of the Tank. The darkened squares are not.

Exception: Tank Destroyers. A Tank Destroyer may only count squares that lie in a straight line in the direction it is facing.

A square is blocked if it contains an Obstacle or another enemy Tank (other than the target). Flags and friendly Tanks do not block Range Counting. Further, you cannot count a square diagonally if there is an Obstacle or enemy Tank on either side of the diagonal.

If your Range Count is 6 squares or more, you have no chance to hit, and you should choose a different target or action. If your Range Count is less than 6 squares, go on to Step 2.

Step 2: Range Roll

The number of squares counted in the previous step is the Range to the target. The Firing Tank rolls one die.

• If the die shows a result less than or equal to the Range, the shot misses. Skip Step 3 and flip the Firing Tank to its Finished side.
• If the die shows a result greater than the Range, the shot hits, but may or may not cause damage. Go on to Step 3 to find out.

For example, if you counted 4 squares from the Firing Tank to its target, you need to roll a 5 or a 6 to hit.

Step 3: Damage Roll

If the shot hits, the Firing Tank must check whether it has Destroyed the enemy Tank. The Firing Tank rolls one or two dice depending on its Fire rating, and compares each die result with the enemy Tank's Armor rating.

• If every die result is less than or equal to the Armor rating, the shot is deflected and the enemy Tank is not Destroyed.
• If any die result is greater than the Armor rating, the enemy Tank is Destroyed. Remove it from the board.

Whatever the result, the Firing Tank is then flipped to its Finished side.

Example: a Heavy Tank rolls two dice when firing on a Light Tank, which has an Armor rating of 3.

• If the Heavy Tank rolls a 1 and a 2, the shot is deflected, because neither die is greater than 3.
• If the Heavy Tank rolls a 4 and a 2, the shot Destroys the Tank, because one die (the 4) is greater than 3.
• If the Heavy Tank rolls a 4 and a 6, the shot Destroys the Tank, because at least one die (in this case both) is greater than 3. The Destroying result requires only one die.

(The dice faces in this example were read from the page image of the Russian copy.)

Flipping Finished Tanks

On your turn, instead of acting with one of your ready Tanks, you may flip all of your Finished Tanks on the board to their ready sides. Remember, Finished Tanks cannot Move or Fire.

Rebuilds

Twice during the game, you may use your turn to Rebuild one of your Tanks that was Destroyed. The Tank is placed on your military base (a free square on your Home Edge) with its Finished side up, facing any direction. After the Rebuild, move your Rebuild counter one space down the track. When it reaches "0", you can no longer rebuild Tanks in that game. (If you wonder why the track has more than two spaces, see Handicapping under the Advanced Rules, section 10.)

Victory

If, at the start of your turn, you have Captured both enemy Flags, you win immediately. To Capture a Flag, one of your Tanks must be standing on it. It does not matter whether you captured both Flags at the end of your previous turn; they must still be held at the start of your next turn.

If all of a player's Tanks are Destroyed, the player is not allowed to Rebuild any of them, even if the Rebuild counter has not reached "0", and the opponent wins immediately.

The game continues until one side wins. There are no draws.

Advanced Rules

The following rules add complexity to the game. You may use any combination of them, provided both players agree. The basic rules are recommended without changes for your very first games, and for games with young players.

Handicapping

A player may be given an advantage or a disadvantage by changing the number of Rebuilds that player is allowed, either increasing her own or reducing her opponent's.

Reserves

A player may use two of her Rebuild actions at once to bring in a brand-new sixth Tank, chosen from her remaining pieces. This Tank is placed on the player's military base with its Finished side up.

Flank Armor

If you fire on an enemy Tank from a square that is not in front of it (as defined in section 6), you are firing at its flank. When you do, reduce the target's Armor rating by one for that shot.

Bounding Fire

A Tank may move and fire in the same turn, in that order only. The Tank's Speed is reduced by one for that move. After the move is finished, the Tank may Fire, but when making its Range Roll it must roll two dice, and both must be higher than the Range. If either or both dice fail to exceed the Range, the shot misses.

A Heavy Tank, whose Speed is 1, cannot use Bounding Fire.

Stun

If a Range Roll succeeds and the Damage Roll result equals the target's Armor rating, the target is stunned and its counter is flipped to its Finished side. If it is already on its Finished side, nothing further happens.

Reverse Movement

When a Tank moves, it may use its whole move to move backwards exactly one square, regardless of its Speed. A Tank may turn 90 degrees before or after the backward move.

Translator's note: the English text in the unofficial companion says a Tank moving in reverse may not turn at any time. The Russian copy, followed above, permits the turn. Players should check this against the official English rulebook.

Moving in reverse cannot be combined with Bounding Fire.

Ramming

You may ram an enemy Tank by moving into its square. When your Tank is adjacent to the enemy Tank and facing its square, announce that you are ramming it. Your Tank does not actually enter the enemy square, but it must have enough Speed to enter that square. Both players roll a die for their Tanks. If the roll is greater than the Armor rating of the target, the target is Destroyed. If either or both Tanks survive, they are flipped to their Finished side. Your Tank may be placed on the square next to the enemy Tank, facing it.

Translator's note: the Russian text reads "greater than the Armor rating of the target" for both players' rolls. The unofficial English companion reads "greater than their Tank's Armor Rating". The wording above follows the Russian; check against the official English rulebook.

Ramming cannot be combined with Bounding Fire.

Destroying Obstacles

A Tank may fire at an Obstacle in the same way, and under the same restrictions, as at an enemy Tank. If the Range Roll succeeds, the Damage Roll result must be greater than 4 to Destroy the Obstacle. If you are using the Terrain rule below, you may only Destroy Buildings and Woods. If you fire on Water, the worst that can happen is a splash, which the players can simulate with water pistols at a safe distance from the game.

Terrain

Obstacles have properties based on the type of Terrain they represent.

• Buildings: as with Obstacles in the basic rules, they block both Movement and Range Counting.
• Woods: Tanks may enter Woods squares freely, but Woods still block Range Counting. If a Woods square is occupied by the Firing Tank or by the target Tank, that Woods square does not block Range Counting.
• Water: Tanks cannot enter Water squares, but Water squares do not block Range Counting.

When using the Terrain rule, Step 1 of the Set-Up procedure changes. The player choosing an Obstacle counter decides which side to place it on (showing the Terrain she wishes to use), then rolls the dice to determine the square. Her opponent then does the same. Players alternate until all six Obstacle counters have been placed.