Sniper Elite: The Board Game – The Heavy Water Facility Map

19th May 2021

Designed by David Thompson and Roger Tankersley, Sniper Elite: The Board Game brings the award-winning video game to the tabletop, with one player stalking through the shadows as Karl Fairburne while their opponents attempt to track them down.

On the blog today we’re taking a look at the Heavy Water Facility, one of the two new maps included in the Eagle’s Nest expansion. This isolated facility is crucial to the Axis efforts to create nuclear weapons of their own, and as such is a high-priority target for the Allies.

Some of you will have seen the art for the board already on the Kickstarter campaign page, but here it is in all its glory.

The Heavy Water Facility map is at a much wider scale than any of the others, introducing new challenges for both the Allied and Axis players to contend with.

As the Sniper, by staying off the road you can massively increase your chances of remaining undetected as you dart from hedgerow to hedgerow. However, that added safety comes at a cost. Progress will be much slower, and with just 10 turns to complete each of your objectives you may not have that luxury.

For the Axis forces, knowing that the Sniper could be taking a slow, meandering off-road route can make it very tempting to head off the road yourself as you hunt them down, but by doing so it’s easy to leave some of your soldiers isolated in poor positions. Tracking your opponent down can be tricky – remember that keeping them from achieving their objectives is another route to victory.

You may also be drawn to the river that divides the map, with the bridges creating some great choke points that you can block with your soldiers, but would committing so many troops to this purpose be worth it? While you may be able to make the Sniper’s task more difficult, it would be a challenge to stop them completely, especially when they could have the Diving Equipment as one of their Loadout cards to allow them to move through the water spaces. 

The defenders will face a similar question with the high ground on the Northern and Eastern sides of the map. These areas have designated routes in and out which could be blocked, but if the Sniper has included the Climbing Equipment in their loadout they will be able to scale the cliff faces anywhere along the border.

Whether you are playing as the Sniper or the Defending Forces, discipline is essential, as a handful of choices will make or break a situation for either side. As such, this map is better suited to experienced players on all sides.

Sniper Elite: The Board Game and the Eagle’s Nest expansion are available to preorder on BackerKit – head on over and order your copy today!