Overview
At a glance
Is this game right for my group?
ABG editorial scores on a 1–5 scale.
Harder to teach
High replayability
Highly interactive
Scales well
Deep strategy
How it plays
How does it play?
ATO #25 Storm Over Taierzhuang is a two player game simulating the Battle of Taierzhuang from March 25 to April 6, 1938. One player plays the Japanese Army and the other plays the Chinese KMT troops.
Core mechanisms
Key systems that shape the decisions players make.
Area Movement
Move pieces between connected regions rather than along individual spaces.
Area-Impulse
Players alternate short actions within contested areas until everyone passes.
Dice Rolling
Roll dice to introduce uncertainty into actions, production, movement, or resolution.
Movement Points
Spend a movement allowance across spaces with different costs.
Chit-Pull System
Draw tokens to determine which units, factions, or events activate next.
Simulation
Model a real or imagined system through detailed cause-and-effect rules.
Read the full game description
ATO #25 Storm Over Taierzhuang is a two player game simulating the Battle of Taierzhuang from March 25 to April 6, 1938. One player plays the Japanese Army and the other plays the Chinese KMT troops. The game is 13 turns long. Simulates the most famous battle of the Second Sino-Japanese war 1937-1945 which the Japanese 10th division with 25,000 fanatical and well trained and equipped men and backed up by large numbers of tanks, armored cars, artillery and planes drove towards the town of Taierzhuang to pave the way for the conquest of the city of Xuzhou. The Japanese are opposed by the KMT 2nd Army group & 20th Army consisting of 100,000 brave and tenacious soldiers with no tanks, little artillery and some aircraft defending behind heavy fortifications and trenches. The battle eerily resembles the Battle of Stalingrad 4 years later and it is said that General Chuikov's tactics at Stalingrad was inspired by this battle (Chuikov was an military adviser to Jiang Jie Shi (Chang Kai Shek) in 1940. The system used is a modified Storm Over Arnhem/Stalingrad system with added stuff like initiative, random events, tactical chit play etc. Done to be played within an evening and easy to learn but still a challenge to play.