Airborne's End
By Mike Bennighof, Ph.D.
June 2008

Seven years is a lifetime for a game in our industry — literally so, according to one of our much larger and far wealthier competitors. And so after seven years its time to retire Panzer Grenadier: Airborne, a game that's always ridden near the top of our sales charts yet never really found its true identity.

When we launched the product line we call Panzer Grenadier in the Year 2000, it had already been on my mind for many years and through many false starts. The game system itself changed radically in the last year or two before that first release as developer Brian Knipple made changes and additions that changed the game from a stilted, turn-based process into a much more dynamic and interactive model.

Many of the ideas for a Panzer Grenadier product line are much older than that. And they were not particularly clear or useful, having their roots in fan-like designer wishes, ego (the most destructive force in the known universe), and a near-total lack of marketing savvy. One of the hardest lessons to learn in operating a full-time game company is to treat the product as product.

Our presentation of Panzer Grenadier as a product line is based heavily on practices common in marketing role-playing games, known in the industry as the "core-supplement model." A set of core rulebooks is necessary to play the game, and then there are supplements that give the game master adventures to run, additional creature, weapons or locations, or something else that enhances the experience. Steady releases of new supplements keep the game line in the eye of consumers and retailers.

It's the prevalent model in the specialty game industry, one that's also been adopted by collectible games. That makes it hazardous to strike out on one's own, and since we sell most of our games through the wholesale channel we have to adapt to the way things are done there.

We brought out the first Panzer Grenadier game in 2000, which we called Eastern Front but the box itself only called "Panzer Grenadier." It was intended from the start to be the first of many such games, and was followed the next summer by Heroes of the Soviet Union. And here we started to run into trouble. Heroes was a half-and-half product: half stand-alone game, half add-on to the original Eastern Front. As such, it satisfied no one. When Lys Fulda arrived the following winter to take over marketing duties, she instituted some new rules: among others, a boxed game must be playable with the parts inside the box.

At the time, Airborne was already in the works. I'd asked for a low-cost introductory game, but made a key mistake thanks to my background in historical wargames. I asked Brian Knipple for a list of topics that could fit within the small roster of allowable game parts, and chose what seemed to be the most attractive.

That part at least, I got right. Airborne has elite American paratroopers fighting the Germans behind the Normandy beaches on and immediately after D-Day, and it's a well-crafted game. It showed off one of the system's strengths, modeling small infantry fights. It focuses on American forces and it has a good mix of scenarios. It is very successful as a game of American airborne battles in Normandy.

As an introductory game, it is far less successful. Panzer Grenadier handles infantry combat well — that was what I really set out to do with the game. But the fans like panzers; that's why we put "panzer" in the series title. Airborne has very few tanks and they don't really get to fight each other. It does not show off the game system to best advantage.

Airborne's official release was scheduled for Tuesday September 11, 2001. The disruptions of that day slowed its initial sales, but by the next year it did well mostly thanks to its topic, mounted mapboard and $29.99 price tag. What it did not do was serve as a gateway to Panzer Grenadier: Nothing within the package gave any hint that this was anything other than a standard series game that just happened to be smaller than the others. Its packaging also gave no hint.

And then there was the greatest marketing blunder of all: We called it Airborne. I knew the late Stephen Ambrose, and while I can't say for sure he would have given me the title "Band of Brothers" and endorsed the game, he surely couldn't have done so since I never bothered to ask.

Eventually it sold out and we re-issued it in 2006 with a new cover, revised scenarios (to use only parts within the game box) and a new-model cardstock mapboard. The cover was fairly weak, and it lacks the stirring iconic image the game really needed. It still did well, with the $19.99 price tag helping out in that department. But now the stockpile is dwindling and it is time for it to go.

Airborne has done its duty and will not be reprinted. There might be other Normandy games for the Panzer Grenadier system, and there will definitely be a true introductory game, but there won't be another printing of Airborne.

Click here to order Airborne before it's gone!