Wargame SITREP 231209 N3 Ops – The scoop on SCOPE: Stalingrad (Draco Ideas, 2021-2023)

BLUF: An easy to learn, quick to play, lightly thematic card wargame that is an excellent weekday lite filler title for a wargaming family.

What is a wargame? If it is a game and about war then it is a wargame. right? Even if it does not have hexes and counters and a combat results table it is still a wargame, yes? Draco Ideas give us their answer in a three-wargame set called the SCOPE Trilogy. The set includes three titles: SCOPE: Stalingrad (2021-2023), SCOPE: U-boot (2022), and SCOPE: Panzer (2023). My copy of SCOPE: Trilogy recently delivered as part of a Gamefound campaign.

Each SCOPE title is a differently themed card game. The first title, SCOPE: Stalingrad, is the “red box” game of the series. SCOPE: Stalingrad, like each title of the trilogy, comes in a 6.25″ x 4.25″ x 1.5″ box. The components of SCOPE: Stalingrad are simple; 60 cards and a rulebook.

Thematically, SCOPE: Stalingrad is in many ways a simplified, card wargame version of the movie Enemy at the Gates (2001). As the back of the box states: “SCOPE is a card game in which each player controls a sniper team that must eliminate the rival sniper team and other strategic objectives, shooting wisely and changing position to not be discovered and eliminated.”

In a game of SCOPE: Stalingrad, the battlefield is depicted for each side with various cards. Some are Empty Areas, others are Units and some are Decoys. Each side also has Snipers. In the Basic Game on your turn you can Move (rearrange any “quadrant” of four cards) or Search (reveal an enemy Area Card). If the revealed card is a Unit or Sniper, the searching player can Shoot it by placing a Shot card over a four-card quadrant to indicate from where the shot came from. The targeted card is removed for points and replaced with an Empty Area card. If the revealed card is a Decoy, the searching player must Shoot by placing a Shot card on a firing quadrant. To win one must either eliminate the enemy Snipers first or earn a certain amount of victory points for removed units.

SCOPE: Stalingrad also has Thematic Scenarios such as “Break the Chain of Command” where the winner is the first to eliminate two Officer cards. The Thematic Scenarios have very much a “mission” feel to them and the varied victory conditions take what is otherwise a simple race to elimination game and add different and interesting challenges for victory.

SCOPE: Stalingrad also offers an Advanced Mode which can be activated for Basic or Thematic scenarios. In the Advanced Mode, Unit cards have actions such as Recognition for the Scout unit which reveals two horizontally adjacent enemy area cards without the need to shoot. Each Unit in the game—Officer, Scout, Mortar, Machine Gun, Infantry—has a unique associated action that it can execute in place of the Search action of the Sniper. Frankly, once I played a scenario using the Advanced Mode I don’t think I will ever go back to the Basic Game except in teaching new players.

According to the box edge, a game of SCOPE: Stalingrad is expected to take 10-15 minutes. With two new or moderately experienced players using a Thematic Scenario in Advanced Mode a game could—worst case—take as long as 20 minutes. The quick-play and easy rules teach/learn firmly places SCOPE: Stalingrad in my “Lite” or “Family Wargame” category. SCOPE: Stalingrad has already served as a lite weekday filler game to be played before or after dinner; an opportunity for myself and RockyMountainNavy T to sit down across the table from each other and connect by recounting our respective days over a quick, small game. This first game of the SCOPE Trilogy has proven so enjoyable I purposefully have not moved on to the other games in the series choosing instead to open the next games one-a-week in order to take time with each title to maximize the enjoyment.

To an aged Grognard wargamer like myself, games like SCOPE: Stalingrad may look too simple to be interesting. If you are looking for a deep exploration of sniper battles at the Battle of Stalingrad then this is NOT the game to pursue. But if you seek a small, simple to learn, easy to teach, not lengthy experience where two can sit down for a few minutes and share some gaming joy then SCOPE: Stalingrad may be just right.

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Feature image courtesy RMN

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