G-Barbarossa (2001)

The game: "G-Barbarossa" consists of 250 pieces, a 58 x 82 cm map (printed in English) and 7 pages of rules (in Japanese). Hex scale is 40 km, turn length is a month and units are corps. Player numbers are from one to four and playing time is about six hours. "G-Barbarossa" covers the German offensive of 1941 and the Soviet counter attack of Winter 1941-1942. Soviet units have been treated in a unique way, in that the second step strength of a two step unit varies and is unknown to all players until the unit is reduced. For example: a 3 strength infantry unit?fs second step may reveal itself to be: two, one or * (annihilation!). Soviet leaders are treated in a similar way, with ratings of: 3 (Zhukov only), 2, 1, 0 and *, being revealed to all players only at the moment of battle. Leaders have combat strength and command control ability equal to their rating, and they keep units in supply up to the number of hexes equal to their rating. A leader with a rating of 1 exerts command control into adjacent hexes, a leader with 0 has no combat strength but gives supply to units in the same hex and a * leader is removed before combat, thereby having no effect. Only German panzer corps have a second turn phase, allowing them to exploit breakthroughs. The turn sequence changes in Winter for the Soviet?fs counter attack.

Game Design: Ginichiro Suzuki. Ginichiro Suzuki is the longest working war game designer in Japan and is fondly referred to as: "Colonel G", by Japanese gamers. He was a leader of Epoch's war game project a quarter of a century ago, where he designed: "Desert Fox", "The Longest Day", "The Wings in the Sky" and others. After leaving the project, he founded the editing company "Sho-Kikaku", where he edited the simulation games magazine: "Simulator", designed "Rommel?fs Africa Corps" and developed the S.S. (small-simulation) game series. Some of his games have been reprinted by Command Magazine (Japanese edition), Game Journal and Sunset Games. The designer's initial: "G" precedes the title: 'Barbarossa', to distinguish this game from others dealing with the same subject.

G-Barbarossa was reprinted in Game Journal #1.
Redesigned and translated in Operations Special 3 as Fury in the East (2010).