Blitzkrieg! World War Two in 20 Minutes is a great little two-player board game. The short play time, bright colors, clear graphic design, small table footprint, and minimal text make it a solid choice to play at a pub or coffee shop, or even over a lunch break at work.
Each player starts with a bag full of tokens representing air, ground and sea forces, with a separate pile of tokens next to the board for more powerful units and technological advancements that can be gained during the game. The board is divided up into the different theatres of war, each with spaces to place tokens, and a scoring track that moves back and forth based on which player has placed the highest value units in that theatre. Some spaces give bonuses when a token is placed, such as drawing extra tiles or gaining the aforementioned advanced units and tech.
Players start by drawing three tiles, which are placed behind a screen so the other player can't see them. They then take turns placing tiles on the board and drawing new ones, the idea being to score points by filling up rows of tiles in the different theatres. Most of the strategy is in deciding when and where to place your tiles -- you might need to take advantage of a certain space's bonus, but filling up a row gives points to the player who is furthest along on that theatre's scoring track, so you don't want to leave good openings for your opponent. It's very chess-like; you constantly feel like you are making sacrifices in one area in order to gain ground in another.
The current edition of the game includes a variant that assumes an alternate reality where Germany and Japan won the war and are now fighting over the United States. It uses a new board (cleverly printed on the back side of the main board) with the theatres of war replaced by major U. S. cities. Rather than just being a re-skin of the main game, this one plays a little differently. The game starts with four cities available to place tiles in, and as each city's tile row fills up, the player who finished it gets to pick the next active city from nearby options. The German player gets the same set of tiles from the main game, but the Japanese have their own set, which includes a secret weapon in the form of a certain larger-than-life reptile...
- Blitzkrieg: World War Two in 20 Minutes official website
- Blitzkrieg: World War Two in 20 Minutes on BoardGameGeek