Jack Stalica on his way to the title.	Rob Shoenen considers his attack options.

Storm Over Stalingrad made its debut as a tournament at WBC in 2009. The game was released late in 2008 by Multi­man Publishing as part of the International Gamers Series. It features a simplified version of the area-impulse system, augmented by card play (though the game is not a card driven game). The game plays fast (three hours or less) and is very well suited for tournament play.

In the first round, most bids were for 3 (this is the minimum number of victory areas the Soviet player has to control at the end of Turn 6 in order to win) which proved to be the majority comfort zone where bidding was concerned. There was one bid of 2 and one of 4. The first round saw two German victories and five losses.

The second round consisted of three games; Rob Schoenen vs Jim Mehl, David Harrod vs Tom Drueding, and Jack Stalica vs Dave Deitch. One of these games had a bid of 3, and was won by the Soviets. The other two had bids of 2, with each side winning once. The results of this round propelled Jack Stalica, Jim Mehl and Tom Drueding into the next round. To avoid a bye, Gary Phillips was pressed into play as an Eliminator and matched against Tom Drueding. Both games were played very well, with the Soviets winning both. By fulfilling his role as an Eliminator so well, Gary cut a full round off the tournament by transforming the Stalica-Mehl semi-final into the Final.

 It was great to see so many folks playing and enjoying this new game from MMP, and all the players were exceptionally courteous to each other, making it a great tournament to run. A special congratulations to Jack. He's  been  a very enthusiastic supporter of the game since its release in 2008, and hopefully he'll be back next year to defend his title.