I first heard about Assault system couple of months before the Essen Spiel 2023 convention. I contacted then Wolfgang, main designer and at the same time owner of the Assault Games company and we agree to meet during that fair. We had a chance to play the newest design in the system (not yet published Sicily’43) and I really liked it. So, it was a no-brainer for me to get the first installment in the series, Red Horizon 41.

Since then, I brought the game to the table several times and thought it is high time to share my experiences and impression about that interesting and innovative World War II tactical system. This will probably be not the last time when you hear about that position on my blog.

The Game

First things first, so description of the game and system. Assault – Red Horizon 41 is the first volume in a planned series of tactical level wargames in which players lead historical units into battle during Operation Barbarossa (June through October 1941). It is intentionally planned not to be a simulation, but rather it abstracts certain aspects in favor of playability and manageable game length to convey the feeling of comprehensive tactical combat situations.

There are different scenarios that the players can choose from, and within these scenarios, the Order of Battle can vary through the use of Formation Cards. They give the player a certain number and type of units available for the scenario. This ensures both variation and regular surprises since the make-up of your forces will change from game to game.

Units in the Assault Game System are activated by Command Points. Players receive a certain number of Command points, which are listed on the Formation cards. Before Command Phase, players secretly decide which units to activate in the current turn. The Command point allowance lets the player activate approximately 75% of all available units. Thus, players must set priorities for the turn.

As for the stacking, with many game systems in the hobby, you can find towers of counters and markers on certain hexes of the game board. The overview is then quickly lost. In the Assault Game System, there is a clear limit of one unit counter per hex. In addition, there is usually only one command and/or status marker.

In general, Assault has attempted to emphasize game flow. The fact that Command Points are assigned to activate units in the Planning Phase accelerates the game. Since the units to be activated are already established before the Action Phase, there is less for the player to think about and fewer opportunities for AP to set in.

If you think how to sort all those counters, tokens and game elements, have a look at Cube4Me Storage Solution for Red Horizon 41:

https://cube4me.com/product/assault-red-horizon-41

Session Reports

Let us move now to the session reports part – they will nicely depict some of the game mechanics and components. I will focus only on couple of scenarios, to showcase exemplary set-ups and explain more on the game based on them. As usually, this will be mainly done via beautifully formatted pictures, showing the details of the actions. All three played battles come from our local convention (AGROWAR) which took place several months ago. My opponent in all of them was Trzewik (Ignacy Trzewiczek).

PS. Feel free to click on the images for a zoom-in into details. Enjoy!

Scenario 1 – Infantry Training

Our journey started with a very small – you may say tiny – infantry training scenario. The forces are pre-determined, the turn limit is set at six, and whoever occupies / controls the objective in the middle of the map hex at the end of the scenario, wins.

Set-up for Infantry Training scenario. I will be leading Germans while Trzewik commands Soviets. Each side has two regular infantries plus one Machine Gun. The distance is close, the objective only one, and the battle will be at close quarters!
And so, it was a fierce fight; my troops were quicker to occupy hill hexes in the middle of the map and the actual objective hex; however, a counterattack led by Trzewik – which included close combat – pushed me away. I lost two units, Soviets only one. Victory to Ignacy!

Scenario 2 – Vehicle Training

We decided not to stop but immediately jump to the next scenario. This time it was vehicle training – rules of engagement were pretty similar, with six turns of play and victory condition set at control of sole Victory Objective in the hills.

This time the fight was on a little bigger distance (tanks shooting at each other); this time I was in charge of Soviets while Ignacy was commanding Germans. The map was twice as large as previous one and there were some interesting terrain features which would impact the tactics on map.
Wow, that was brutal fight; we had almost all units somehow damaged, and few utterly destroyed. Again, I was first to occupy the hill and objective but was pushed out from it via Close Combat just before the game end! Victory and congrats to Trzewik!

Scenario 3 – Tank on Tank, September 1941

What I like about Assault System is how quickly you can play scenarios; this is perfect game for couple of battles played in one evening. Why am I saying this? Because after 2nd scenario we immediately jumped to 3rd!

This time it was not a learning one but a full-scale engagement and with almost all the rules. It was longer (8 turns) with three objectives hexes and various levels of victory / defeat (you can occupy from zero to three goals at the end of the game). Let us see!

Much bigger area, consisting of three maps, with three objectives. Soviets led by me; Germans commanded by Trzewik.
As we played with full rules, we draw Formation Cards to check which units were provided to us by High Command. I got very nice set, with some fearsome T34 which will lead the way!
Again, I was quick to progress forward, occupy two out of three objective hexes and then position my forces at some distance, with superior T34 range and accuracy. In the meantime, I blew up one of Panzer IIs 🙂
But Trzewik had a super rolls this day; his Panzer IVs did a raid on central objective at the same time destroying one of my tanks and forcing T34 to retreat almost all way back to the baseline! While I was able to inflict loses on Germans, I could not recapture the 2nd objective and Minor Victory went to Ignacy.

First Impressions

Let me now share my experiences about Assault Red Horizon’41. This is based on play of above scenarios and several other chances to bring this system to the table:

  • I really appreciate some of the base game mechanics – specifically Formation Cards and Command Points. The former makes the game extremely replayable, while the latter not only speeds-up the gameplay but also forces you to make strategic choices whom to activate and whom to neglect in particular turn,
  • One of the things which is crucial in any Tactical Level Wargame is combat resolution mechanism. Usually you get couple of d6’s, roll on Combat Resolution Table and implement effect. Not here! The system of four, color-coded dices (red, yellow, green, blue) with different distribution of three types of results (critical hit, damage, suppression) is one of the best parts of the system. It does reflect the difference in strength, equipment and training but always leaves a small possibility for surprising result!
  • I like how the scenarios were organized here. We have training ones, we have individual engagements and what is most important, we have a full, 4-battles campaign where outcome of one directly impacts the set-up and forces of the next one. Great!
  • Definitely, I am becoming fan of low-counter-density games. It is much easier to organize things, to see the true situation on map and of course it speeds up the play! Here we have maximum one combat unit and one action marker per each hex which works greatly!
  • One of the things which immediately draws your attention is how beautiful the game is published. I love the components – maps, cards, units and dices.
  • The game is pretty solitaire friendly, as except for Command Cards, there is no hidden information. You play two-handed, alternating moves, trying to optimize the actions one by one, to the best of your capabilities.
  • What might cause problems in some situations, is calculating Line of Sight on larger distances. This is not a big deal, especially if you have proper tool for this, but might be a nuisance.

Now, if you ask me if I liked the system, the answer is obvious – very much. But what is even more important, it that with the second game in the system – Sicily’43 – our experiences will only get better! With improved graphics, reworked close combat, new rules for entrenchments plus interesting, multi-scenario campaign the system will make a huge leap forward. This is of course topic for another day – stay tuned!