In the year 2000, Avalanche Press returned wargaming to its roots with the exciting Panzer Grenadier series. A new game for a new century, it combined the fun of 1970s World War II tactical games with modern graphics and smooth, interactive play. The first volume, titled simply Panzer Grenadier but called Eastern Front in our sales and marketing literature, was immensely popular and sold very well. The last copies of a large print run went out of our warehouse in early 2003. Computer crashes and aging film left us unable to simply re-print this best-seller, a tragic outcome for a small company. If we wanted to make more copies of this game, we'd have to start from the ground up. Since the work required out of the art department would be the same as that for a new game, it seemed best to just make a new game. However, some of the older Panzer Grenadier titles (Heroes of the Soviet Union, Airborne) had been published with scenarios requiring parts from the original Eastern Front. If we took Eastern Front permanently out of print, these games would be incomplete for new players. Plus, we had several modules or book supplements (Arctic Front, Edelweiss, Tank Battles) also calling for pieces and game boards from Eastern Front. Finally, there was just plain old market inertia at work. Role-playing games, and a handful of tactical wargames, have for years been sold on the core-supplement model. A "core" game is sold which contains the rules and perhaps key components, and then "supplements" allow players to add more stuff. Panzer Grenadier was never intended to follow this model, and to emphasize this feature, games published after Airborne stand completely alone with no scenarios calling for parts from other games. However, many retailers and some players fell into the belief that without Eastern Front, they could not sell or play any other games in the series. Thus, our sales and marketing manager, Liz Fulda, directed that Eastern Front must return to print. Art and Counters Since we needed a new box and new counters, we decided to replace the map art as well. No longer will the deeply hated "10 percent" rule afflict gaming tables. The new maps will use the style Terry Moore Strickland showed so well with Beyond Normandy. And there's twice as much playing area from which to choose, as we jump from four to eight maps. And we didn't just replace the old counter set, but expanded it greatly. For owners of the original edition, there are many new additions here. The Germans add their Czech-made Pz35t and Pz38t tanks and French-made P204f (Panhard) armored cars. They receive their own armored train, and a platoon of Brandenburger commandos.

Artillery ranges from 37 mm anti-tank guns through the feared 88 mm anti-aircraft guns to the 105 mm howitzer. In addition to infantry, the Germans also now have two full squadrons of cavalry. Panzers vary from the near-useless Pz I through the mighty Tiger. A new concept is added for the first time to the series, the vehicles known as prime movers. These are tracked or semi-tracked vehicles like the Soviet Komsomolets or the German SdKfz-7. They have better performance off the road than the game's standard trucks, but cannot carry infantry. The Soviets received a much greater overhaul than the Germans. New artillery pieces include the 107 mm cannon and 76.2 mm mountain gun. A new "mixed" type of infantry is available, anti-tank rifle platoons. There are two new flavors of armored car: the FAI and Ba6 in addition to the Ba10m found in the first edition. The stable of tanks is vast, with T-60, T-35, T-34A, T-28, T-26, BT-5, BT-7, KV-1 and KV-2 types. 112 Scenarios! As though this were not enough, a new nationality makes its first appearance in the Panzer Grenadier series, the Romanians. They have their own tanks (the R2, very similar to the German Pz35t) and lots of cavalry. They also have elite mountain troops and some motorcyclists, but are weak in artillery and anti-tank guns. With all those new toys, we have to give you scenarios in which to use them. The 50 scenarios of the old game are back, many of them carrying slight revisions that have cropped up over the years or to reflect the new mix of game pieces available. And we have 62 new ones, for a grand total of 112.