Red Blitz
An Expansion for Old School Tactical Volume 1 Second Edition
by
Flying Pig Games
Flying Pig Games should have really used hog instead of pig for its flying porcine. Their games are enormous with massive maps that come with 1" hexes. The counters come in two sizes. The armored vehicles are 7/8" and the soldier, etc. ones at 3/4".
This is what Flying Pig Games has to say about Red Blitz:
"In the vein of Old School Tactical Vol 2's Phantom Division we present Red Blitz. This boxed expansion will add more scenarios that occur during the vicious fighting of Operation Bagration in the summer of 1944.
Specifically, there are 6 challenging new scenarios, and an extended battle to be gamed on Vol I's Map 1. The extended battle is a multi-part legacy scenario, where the day's gains remain in your hands and reinforcements are fed into the battle. A running score is kept and the winning side is determined at the end of all the rounds.
The "one-off" scenarios are fought on 4 new pocket maps, depicting summer and winter terrain. Additionally, Red Blitz presents new combatants, including the SU-76M, SU-85, OT-34, PT34, ISU-152, IS-2, StuH-42 and the Nashorn."
Red Blitz Includes:
4 new 11" x 17" game maps (4 x summer and 4 x winter).
A playbook with 6 new scenarios and a separate, new campaign.
A sheet of gorgeous counters, including--but not limited to-- the new units cited above.
A box to keep everything safe and warm.
This is an expansion. You must own Old School Tactical Vol I 2nd Edition to play.
The expansions maps are up to Flying Pig Games usual beauty and usefulness. They are paper maps and not mounted. To me it is not big deal. I just break out the plexiglass. Some people may feel differently. The Maps are 'Pocket Maps' numbers four through seven. The Maps are identical on both sides except for one side is summer and one is winter. The counters are just as huge and little works of art like all of the Flying Pig Games I have seen. The vehicle/weapon cards are also up to the same high standards. There are four German cards and six Soviet ones. The Soviet player gets some monster tanks (IS 2, and ISU 152) along with a flamethrower T-34 and a mine sweeping one. The Playbook is fourteen pages long. It is in full color and has large type that is easy to read. All but one page is devoted to the new scenarios. The expansion's components are all comparable to the ones you get with the main games.
Once again, Flying Pig Games has given us a very nice expansion to one of their core games. To play the scenarios in Red Blitz you need to either have a copy of Old School Tactical Volume I 2nd Edition or the 2nd Edition Upgrade for the original Old School Tactical. The scenarios will also need some of the counters from the main game. The new maps and units, especially the units, bring a great amount of added value to the base game. Thank you, Flying Pig Games for allowing me to review this expansion.
If you have not looked at Hermann Luttmann's magnum opus 'A Most Fearful Sacrifice' game about the Battle of Gettysburg, you owe yourself to take a look. Here is my review of it:
Robert
Flying Pig Games:
Flying Pig Games Red Blitz:
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