Fire in the Steppe:
Expanding the Fun
by Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
December 2023

Sometimes, a game project comes together just the way you’d hoped. I wanted a lot out of Panzer Grenadier: Fire in the Steppe; it would be the first game we would publish with the blend of history and game-play that I wanted to use in all of our books and games.

It meets my expectations right on target – Fire in the Steppe is the game that I wanted to make.

Panzer Grenadier is our World War II tactical game series, covering just about every theater from the jungles to the steppes to the hedgerows. Units are platoons of infantry and tanks, batteries of artillery and anti-tank guns, and squadrons of cavalry (oh yes, we have lots of horsed cavalry in Panzer Grenadier). The maps are geomorphic, a term from the dawn of wargaming that means they’re generic representations of the terrain in the area (in this case, western Ukraine) that you fit together to form the battle map.

Game-play isn’t overly complicated, as wargames go (which, granted, is an order of magnitude greater than most board games). Leaders activate your units and move them toward the enemy. Artillery prepares the way, tanks force their way forward, and infantry secure those gains and also protect your tanks from enemy infantry (who will otherwise crawl on top of them and set them on fire). Just as your forces interact, so do the players, as you get to respond to what the enemy does (chiefly by shooting at them).

Panzer Grenadier stuff comes in two broad categories. First, there are complete games, that include everything you need to play them: rules, scenarios, pieces, maps. They don’t have dice, because you already have plenty of those.

And then there are expansions, which include scenarios and might have pieces and/or maps, too, but aren’t playable by themselves. These take the core game and add more ways to play it, making a game you’ve already played new again.

Fire in the Steppe is a core game, perhaps the core game of Panzer Grenadier. It’s based on the June 1941 tank battles at Brody and Dubno on the border of Ukraine and German-occupied Poland. The Soviet South-West Front’s command had reacted to early signs of German treachery by alerting their front-line units and moving up reinforcements as much as they dared, given Moscow’s insistence on avoiding provocation. Soviet doctrine demanded prompt counter-attacks against an enemy penetration, and that’s exactly what the front command’s eight mechanized corps proceeded to do (or at least attempt) resulting in a huge, swirling tank battle.

It makes for great story-telling, starting with those tank battles, but there are also river crossings and infantry fights, with both sides having to attack and defend. The Red Army’s tank divisions look impressive when they enter the battle map, with the T34 and KV1 tanks that out-match anything the Germans can offer, and the T35 “land battleship.” And then things sort of fall apart, thanks to weaknesses in logistics, training and doctrine, and leadership. The Soviets can inflict serious defeats on the Germans, but it’s going to take crafty game play to use their advantages wisely.

Fire in the Steppe has 42 scenarios split into five chapters; each chapter has historical text and a “battle game” that ties the scenarios together. You don’t have to play all of the scenarios, but of you do, the battle game gives you context and goals. The scenarios range from big ones suitable for team play, on down to those using just one 17x11-inch map that you can wrap up in an hour or two.

While Fire in the Steppe tells a deep story, we can also use it to tell still more stories. And that’s why we keep expanding it.

Tank Battle at Raseiniai
It’s just a little book, but I really like Tank Battle at Raseiniai. It’s based on the other huge tank battle that raged in the opening days of Operation Barbarossa. Two Soviet mechanized corps counter-attacked an invading German armored corps in June 1941, in a series of battles that at first showed some success. It’s not a well-known action, but I uncovered plenty of detail, some of which I’ve never seen in the English- or German-language historiography of the Great Patriotic War. It’s just 10 scenarios (plus history) in two chapters (each of them of course with a battle game), but I’m quite proud of this little book, both its history and its game-play. It’s among the very best work I’ve ever done.

Order Tank Battle at Raseiniai right here.

Armata Romana
The Royal Romanian Army participated in Operation Barbarossa right alongside the Germans, and we delve into that story with 20 scenarios (broken into three chapters) and 98 die-cut pieces. The Romanians aren’t as well-armed, well-trained, and well-led as the Germans, but they’re not pushovers, either. They’re often out-gunned by the Red Army, as they lack the tanks and artillery of the Soviets, but their cavalry and mountain troops are as good as anything the Germans have. The Romanians have an armored division of their own (with French- and Czech-made tanks), and as far as I know this is the only wargame/expansion to focus on them.

Order Armata Romana right here.

Eastern Front Artillery
In role-playing game design, there’s this term called “crunch,” which means in essence more detail. Players like crunch in role-playing games, since usually only one person has to keep up with the rules. We limit it in our wargames, but Eastern Front Artillery shovels it back in, with lots more options for your artillery (drumfire, counter-battery, interdiction, danger close, and a bunch more) and you get pieces for that off-board heavy artillery plus the stories of the weaponry. If you take your gaming seriously, this is a must-have: it adds a whole new raft of player decisions and increases the “realism” of the scenarios.

Order Eastern Front Artillery right here.

49th Mountain Corps
The German 49th Mountain Corps operated on the southern flank of Panzer Group One during the Brody-Dubno tank battles, but we didn’t include pieces for mountain troops in Fire in the Steppe so those actions aren’t covered. They’re in Parachutes Over Crete, however, so 49th Mountain Corps takes the pieces from that game and lets you play with them on the Fire in the Steppe maps against the Red Army. The book has 10 new scenarios, split into two chapters with the story of the battles, too.

Order 49th Mountain Corps here.

You can order Fire in the Steppe right here.

Steppe Experience
      Fire in the Steppe
      Kursk: Burning Tigers
      Eastern Front Artillery
Retail Price: $214.97
Package Price: $170
Gold Club Price: $134
You can order the Steppe Experience right here.

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Mike Bennighof is president of Avalanche Press and holds a doctorate in history from Emory University. A Fulbright Scholar and NASA Journalist in Space finalist, he has published an unknowable number of books, games and articles on historical subjects. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife and three children. He misses his dog, Leopold.

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