World War II is a not-insignificant part of my family history. My maternal grandfather spent 1944-45 in France and Belgium murdering fascists. Before that he was stationed in the UK where he was in charge of an anti-aircraft battery tasked with shooting down buzzbombs being lobbed over the English Channel. He had some stories, I can tell you that. He shared a lot of them with me when I was growing up, which was the start of my lifelong fascination with the Second World War.
I've also been a lifelong gamer. I first encountered Dungeons and Dragons at the age of 9, via a stack of game books and Dragon magazines gifted to me by a guy my mom was dating. I don't remember who that dude was but I guess I owe him an immense debt of gratitude as, many years later I somehow stumbled my way into a career in the game industry.
Lucky for me then that World War II has been the fertile ground from which countless games have sprung. My first real wargaming experience was Avalon Hill's Panzer Leader which I received as a Christmas gift in my early teens. Squad Leader came next, which shifted my interest to the Eastern Front. There's something fascinating about the frozen urban hell of Stalingrad and the costly victory the Soviets there achieved against Hitler's war machine. We Americans love to think we single-handedly saved Europe from German aggression, but the truth is that those five months of bitter fighting in Stalingrad is where the tide broke against Hitler.
I'm clearly not the only one who harbors a lingering interest in the Eastern Front, as there have been a bewildering number of World War II games set there. So many that it's become kind of a thing in wargaming circles to bemoan the arrival of each new take on the subject matter. At this point if you want to release an Eastern Front wargame you have to either do it exceptionally well or do something different.
Pavlov's House (DVG), I'm happy to say, does both of those things.
In case you're not a WWII history nerd, Pavlov's House refers to a famous building in Stalingrad in which a group of Soviet soldiers fortified themselves against the Wehrmacht for two months. The building, a modest four-story apartment complex, was dubbed 'Pavlov's House' after Sgt. Yakov Pavlov, who led a platoon to recapture the building and hold it against counter-attacks from September 27th, 1942 until late November when Pavlov and his men were relieved by elements of the Red Army.
The first thing you'll notice about Pavlov's House when you lay the board out for play is the way it divides the play area into three sections. The rightmost section is a bird's eye view of the Volga river and serves as a staging area for the Soviet 62nd Army. The center section is a closer view of the house, and is where the Wehrmacht forces are arranged as they approach. The leftmost section is a cutaway view of the house itself and it is here where you will assign individual soldiers to cover various approaches so they can suppress and kill incoming enemies.
It sounds weird at first but once you grasp how the three levels of gameplay interlock it makes perfect sense. The entire game, in fact, turns on understanding how its various systems and economies are balanced against each other. It may sound daunting but once you play a couple of turns and you grokk what David Thompson (the game's designer) is up to the game is revealed to be a master-class in elegant game design.
On the operational end of things, you are trying to ferry goods and men into Pavlov's House. You can send food, medicine, ammunition, etc. as well as individual soldiers and weapons. The ammunition is a good example of how the game works across all three sections. Using one of your available actions you can load ammunition into a staging area box. Another action allows you to load the ammunition onto a flotilla across the Volga, and eventually transport it to the Reserves area of the house itself. Once the ammo arrives at the house, however, it is exchanged for Suppression tokens at a rate of five Suppression tokens for every ammo counter. You cannot immediately make use of these tokens, however - to do so you must first use a soldier or team of soldiers manning a machinegun to take these tokens from the Reserves and place them into sectors covered by those soldiers. When Wehrmacht soldiers are then placed onto the center section of the board you can spend these suppression tokens to roll a die - one per token - to prevent the enemy from making it to the board, provided there are tokens assigned to the correct sector. It sounds like a lot to think about but you will very quickly internalize these systems and learn how to balance them to achieve victory. If you're lucky.
Understanding how everything works is one thing - turning this understanding in to a win is another thing altogether. When Stuka dive bombers start disrupting your operational capabilities and enemy forces creep ever closer to Pavlov's House you will feel a very real sense of wild desperation as you spend your limited actions and resources to fend them off. The game is played on a timer - the Wehrmacht deck, which depletes at a rate of three cards per turn. Each of these cards makes your life hell - either by adding troops and armor units to the center section of the board, by revealing snipers which murder your defenders, or via assaults in which the forces arrayed against you will make concentrated attacks against your men. There's also a real chance of losing your troops to starvation if you fail to bring enough food across the Volga.
Every turn feels like a desperate scramble to make the best of your limited options and in the game's last few turns you'll likely be cursing your luck as the Germans you cleared from your left flank - thus allowing you to perform a valuable Storm Group action which will net you valuable victory points - suddenly re-appear, dashing all your hopes.
Pavlov's House is a tight piece of game design, and is broadly representative of a whole breed of wargames that have begun to emerge the last few years that borrow as much from modern boardgame design principles as they do traditional wargames. Back in the day, soiltaire wargames basically boiled down to taking a basic hex-and-chit wargaming experience and bolting on a kind of artificial intelligence to handle the other side's actions. Pavlov's House is built from the ground up for solo play and thus feels less compromised by vestigial gameplay mechanics. There are rules included for co-op and competitive play but honestly I haven't bothered with them, and I'm okay with that. I also think Pavlov's House would appeal to boardgamers who have shied away from traditional hex-and-chit wargames because of the complexity. There are no tables and charts here - just a couple of reference sheets that explain the use of various actions...and honestly, after a couple of games you won't need to refer to them at all.
I also applaud the game's streamlined graphic design. I've seen some people complain about the game's simplified iconography and design, but I think it works perfectly well - every card and chit is easily, and quickly identifiable making gameplay a breeze.
I can't recommend Pavlov's House highly enough. It sets up quick, plays smoothly, and perfectly conveys its theme through gameplay and mechanics. Solid, solid stuff.
(Note: David Thompson has released a second game using the same system as Pavlov's House - Castle Itter: The Strangest Battle of WWII. I haven't played it but I dearly want to based on that title alone...)
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