Poland between Germany & USSR

Joni Nuutinen

About this game

Poland between Germany & USSR is a turn based strategy game from Joni Nuutinen: by a wargamer for the wargamers since 2011. Last update on March 2026.

You command the Polish WWII armed forces, from tiny tankette units to elite legions of infantry divisions, which are bravely yet hopelessly defending Poland from attacks from three separate directions -- or from four directions if the USSR decides to attack as well. The official plan, called Plan West (September campaign), relies on defending all land areas, but it might be smarter to use the defensive fortifications, rivers, and local militia to your advantage to slow down the German advance enough to mobilize all the regular divisions and brigades into a concentrated defense. Every day of fighting increases the likelihood of receiving Western assistance, or at the very least strengthens the case for the rebirth of the Polish nation after the war!

Rarely in military history has a country been attacked from all four cardinal directions. In September 1939, the Polish armed forces, still in the middle of the process of mobilizing, faced that grim reality. It's like a real-life tower defense scenario in which you are attacked from every possible angle.

"The generals of the two invading armies went over the details of the prearranged line that would mark the two zones of conquest for Germany and Soviet Russia, which would subsequently be rearranged one more time in Moscow. The military parade that followed was recorded by cameras and celebrated in the German newsreel: German and Soviet generals, cheek by cheek, paid military homage to each other's armies and victories."
- Richard Raack

One of the critical decisions you must grapple with is how much to emphasize the immediate frontline strength, as opposed to how much to prioritize and construct rear area infrastructure such as railway networks, hospitals, and dugouts. Placing too much emphasis on long-term planning could result in the collapse of the front lines, while stubbornly clinging to the front lines at all costs would lead to limited long-term prospects.

FEATURES:

+ Historical accuracy: Campaign mirrors the historical setup as much as possible within keeping the game fun and challenging to play.

+ Thanks to all the countless tiny built-in variations there is a huge replay value - after enough turns the flow of the campaign takes a fairly different one compared to the previous play through.

+ Settings: An almost endless list of options are available to alter the look of the gameplay experience: Change difficulty level, hexagon size, animation speed and which units are included, choose icon set for units (NATO or REAL) and cities (Round, Shield, Square, block of houses, settlement), decide what is drawn on the map, turn off unit types, resources, storms and much more.

Ratings and reviews

Outstanding. One of his very best. The only faults I have are bugs in the settings (note: now resolved, moving it up to 5). I would love it if this started a trend of more games playing as the Allies during the Blitzkrieg period.

Definitely needs more alternate scenario settings. Such as what if there was western support, Soviets didn't attack/ joins Poland instead, Polish uprisings in occupied territory, up to 4x increase of local/Main Polish units.

Anothee excellent game from a brilliant developer. Easy to learn. Hard to master. Well worth the coin.

What’s new

+ Visual upgrades