1967: Sword of Israel
Playbook Edition
By Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
April 2026

It may have been a very short war, but it took a very big game to cover all three fronts of the Six Day War. Panzer Grenadier (Modern) 1967: Sword of Israel does that in 48 scenarios, using eight maps and 869 pieces to bring you all of the action.

The Israel Defense Forces face the armies of Egypt, Jordan and Syria, which sounds kind of daunting except that the Israelis actually had a slight edge in numbers, a significant edge in firepower, and an incalculable edge in training, morale and leadership. On top of that, except for a handful of Egyptian commando battalions that made it to the West Bank in time to fight alongside the Royal Jordanian Army, the three putative Arab allies did nothing to aid one another’s war efforts (with the Syrians actively stabbing their Jordanian “allies” in the back)..

The Israelis are at their peak in this conflict, and top to bottom are easily the best army we’ve shown in any of our tactical games. The Jordanians are actually reasonably good, except for their leadership, but they have the bad luck to face the Israelis. The Egyptians aren’t very good, but the Syrian Arab Army is awful by design: Defense Minister Hafez al-Assad (father of Syria’s more recent murderous president) deliberately identified the army’s 400 most intelligent and capable officers and then had them all executed to assure that no one would be left with the ability to organize a coup against the Ba’ath regime.

While the Israelis have all of those advantages, the one thing they don’t have is time. The Soviet Union and United States tacitly agreed that they would like to see the Arabs (in particular, Egypt’s President Gamel Abdel Nasser) severely chastised, but not destroyed. The Americans did not want to see the Arab states grow powerful enough to threaten American interests, while the Soviets considered that a serious but not total defeat would make the Arab states dependent on Moscow. Thus, the war would not be allowed to continue for long before the superpowers would demand an end to it. Whatever the Israelis hoped to accomplish, they would have to accomplish it quickly.

That’s reflected in the scenarios, where the Israelis usually come to the battlefield with enormous advantages, but they’re going to need them all in order to beat the clock. The Arab armies actually fought well in prepared positions, for the most part, and the game shows why. The Arabs don’t usually have to defeat the Israelis in open battle; if they can hamper their advance and slow them up, the operational/strategic result is as good as a win.

The Egyptians might have had a chance to do that in the actual war, but the commander of Egyptian troops in the Sinai (the main front in the war), Abdel Hakim Amer, suffered a severe panic attack on the first day of the war and ordered a general retreat. His Israeli counterpart, Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, went through the same ordeal but unlike the Egyptians, the Israelis had other leaders ready to step up and take command. After the war’s first day, the Egyptians are usually trying to extricate their forces from the onrushing Israeli juggernaut.

The game uses a modified version of our Panzer Grenadier game system. Panzer Grenadier (Modern) plays very much like Panzer Grenadier, with some more modern stuff added. If you know how to play one of them, you can adapt to the other very quickly. The scenarios in 1967: Sword of Israel are usually larger than the typical Panzer Grenadier battle: Israeli success in 1967 in large part depended on getting there first with the most. They crammed a lot of tanks into a little area, and the Arabs tried (unsuccessfully, for the most part) to counter them the same way. That makes for battle with dozens of tank platoons on each side: in other words, exactly what you’ve always wanted.

The 2020 global pandemic twisted supply chains world-wide, and shut off our supply of game boxes. We substituted a new style of box for a few games, but 1967: Sword of Israel was simply too large and heavy for that type of box. When we ran out of the boxed edition, we switched to our Playbook format, without a box at all (just like almost all of our games).

The pieces remain the same in both editions. They’re our usual beautiful die-cut, silky-smooth little works of art. The smoothness comes from the method by which they are cut: ultra-sharp blades that require far less force than traditional die-cutting. They have none of those deep indentations old-school wargames used to feature: both sides of these pieces are smooth, or nearly so. Enough that we have to place a little stripe across the back, else it would be hard to tell just by feel.

The Panzer Grenadier (Modern) pieces are designed like those of Panzer Grenadier, with the same values in the same places, but since this is Panzer Grenadier (Modern) there are a few new values (like anti-aircraft fire, or amphibious capability) and many more units have anti-tank strengths including almost all infantry-type units (which have man-portable anti-tank rockets of various types).

Since we had to lay out the scenario book all over again for the new format, I took the opportunity to thoroughly re-build the scenario set. And I do mean thoroughly. I researched every battle and re-vamped the matching scenario accordingly, and added some specials rules regarding the pieces to bring the game into line with the actual events (for example, only a few Israeli M48 Patton tanks had the L7/105mm rifled cannon, so in most scenarios the M48 is heavily over-rated).

The result is a game with 48 scenarios, broken into nine chapters: four take place on the Sinai front (against the Egyptians), three on the West Bank (against the Jordanians), and two on the Golan Heights (against the Syrians). Each chapter has a battle game that ties the scenarios together, so you can play a series of scenarios in competition with an opponent. The structure, along with historical text, helps tell the story of the campaign through the scenarios.

If you have an old copy of the boxed edition, you can upgrade the scenario set to the same standard as the Playbook, through the link below. The package even includes the Campaign Study, Voice of the Arabs, showing the Six-Day War as insane Egyptian propaganda claimed it went at the time (spoiler: their side won).

Order 1967: Sword of Israel Here.

Six Days
      1967: Sword of Israel
      IDF: Israel Defense Forces
      Voice of the Arabs
      Four-Five Commando
Retail Price: $232.96
Package Price: $185
Gold Club Price: $148

Battle for Six Days.

Sword of Israel Playbook Edition: Downloadable Upgrade Includes Voice of the Arabs Campaign Study
You can transform your old copy of 1967 Sword of Israel (the boxed edition) into the splendid Panzer Grenadier (Modern): 1967 Sword of Israel Playbook Edition, bundled with Voice of the Arabs. It’s $39.99, but if you’re a Gold Club member, you can download for $27.99 using your Gold Club link (That’s the only way to claim your Gold Club discount).

Expand Your Fun!

Voice of the Arabs
In June 1967, Cairo’s official state radio station Voice of the Arabs claimed great victories for the Egyptian and Jordanian armies. The set of 11 scenarios, plus historical background and two battle games, is based on this fantasy triumph - the actual claims of Voice of the Arabs, in scenario form. You’ll need 1967: Sword of Israel (and only 1967: Sword of Israel). $15.99

Order Voice of the Arabs Here.

1970: Black September
In September 1970, the Royal Jordanian Army attempted to eject the Palestine Liberation Organization from Jordan, prompting the Syrian Arab Army to intervene. 1970: Black September is based on these battles between Jordan on one side and Syria and the PLO on the other, and Jordan’s victory over Israel in the 1968 Battle of Karameh. The book includes 10 scenarios, plus historical background and two battle games. Requires 1967: Sword of Israel. $15.99 This Campaign Study is not yet available.

IDF: Israel Defense Forces
A book telling the story of the Six Day War and the armies that waged it, plus 264 die-cut, silky-smooth , silky-smooth pieces displaying the Israeli units from Sword of Israel in an alternative, blue-and-gold color scheme. $40.99.

Order IDF Here.

Golden Journal No. 32: Four-Five Commando
Britain’s Royal Marines intervene in the Six-Day War, just like some defeated Egyptian officers claimed amid the excuses offered.  You get 24 new die-cut and silky-smooth playing pieces and six new scenarios for Panzer Grenadier (Modern): 1967 Sword of Israel, plus the usual history and background stuff that you love.

Order Four-Five Commando Here.
Gold Club members can use their max discount.

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Mike Bennighof is president of Avalanche Press and holds a doctorate in history from Emory University. A Fulbright Scholar and NASA Journalist in Space finalist, he has published a great many books, games and articles on historical subjects; people are saying that some of them are actually good. He lives in Birmingham, Alabama with his wife and three children.

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