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The Battle for Castle Itter was fought near the Austrian village of Itter on 5 May 1945, in the last days of the War in Europe during World War II. US soldiers joined forces with Wehrmacht infantrymen, an SS officer, an Austrian resistance fighter, and recently freed French prisoners of war to defend an Austrian castle against an attacking force from the 17th SS Panzergrenadier Division.
Object of the GameDuring a game of Castle Itter, you take the role of the force that defended the castle from 0400 - 1600 on 5 May 1945. The goal of the game is to last until the SS deck is depleted, without allowing SS Counters to reach the castle. You score points for each Defender that survives the assault and lose points for each SS Counter remaining on the board at the end of the game - the higher your score, the better.
Game OverviewCastle Itter is divided into turns. Each turn consists of two phases:
• Defender Phase: Take five actions with Defender counters
• SS Phase: Play three SS cards
Defender PhaseDuring each turn you take five actions with your Defenders. You can only take one action with a Defender on a turn. When you take an action with a Defender, place an Action Token on the Defender. If you use an action that exhausts a Defender, flip the Defender to its exhausted side. The actions include:
• Attack
• Suppress
• Move within a location
• Move to a new location
• Special Actions (Command and Escape)
• Recover
SS PhaseOnce you have completed your five Defender actions for the turn, reveal three SS Cards from the SS deck, one at a time, resolving the effect of each one before moving to the next. After all three SS Cards have been resolved, discard them. The turn is over and the next turn begins with five new Defender actions.
There are four different categories of SS Cards, based on the card effect:
• Attack Defenders
• Attack Location
• Disrupt Defenders
• Place SS Counters
Ending the GameThe game ends at the end of the turn when the SS deck is exhausted or immediately if the 142nd Infantry Regiment card is drawn from the SS deck.
- Super intense
- Super fun game
- Good solitaire war game
- Minimal difficulty to pick up and play
- Really invest in it
- World War II (very end of the war)
- Castle Itter, Austria
- Unusual coalition defense against SS
- Pavlov's House
Mechanics (from transcript analysis)
- Cooperative Defense — You have this weird coalition of nationalities fighting to to to to to hold out um as they're being attacked here by these um SS.
- Line of sight system — The game has, again, the same great line of sight color system that you see in Pavlov's House.
- Reinforcement/Relief — You're just trying to hold out and keep fighting until your reinforcements arrive and kind of relieve you.
Video topics + discussion points
Quotes (from this video)
- Manila: The Savage Streets 1945. This is kind of a sister game to Stalingrad.
- I thought the Manila game was just a little smoother, a little sweeter. Um and it just worked a lot better.
- Pavlov's House is such a great solitaire war game.
- It was part of a well orchestrated plan to keep them there. And they were well supported by AA guns and communications and supplies.
- Castle Itter is kind of one of the weirdest battles of the war.
- And the game is super intense.
- When I think of a good solitaire war game that I could just pick up and and play with with with minimal difficulty and really invest in it, this is it.
- Vae Victis Emperor by Blue Panther. This is, of course, the Battle of Waterloo.
- he just did such a great great job of abstracting the the basics of the battle, but making them come alive in such a fun way.
- This one is so much fun. It is a great great solitaire war game.