Erwin Rommel, 1891-1944, German field marshal. He entered the army in 1910 and rose slowly through the ranks. In 1939, Adolf Hitler made him a general. Rommel brilliantly commanded an armored division in the attack (1940) on France. In February, 1941, he took the specially trained tank corps, the Afrika Korps, into Libya. For his successes there he was made field marshal and earned the name "The Desert Fox." In 1942, he pressed almost to Alexandria, Egypt, but was stalled by fierce British resistance and lack of supplies. A British offensive overwhelmed (Oct.-Nov., 1942) the German forces at Alamein. Rommel was recalled to Germany before the Afrika Korps's final defeat. He was a commander in northern France when the Allies invaded Normandy in June, 1944. Allied success led Rommel, who had lost his respect for Hitler, to agree to a plot to remove Hitler from office. Wounded in an air raid in July, he had just recovered when he was forced to take poison because of his part in the attempt on Hitler's life in July, 1944.
Blitzkrieg: Burning Horizons follows the traditions set down in the original Blitzkrieg as an excellent WWII RTS. Unlike the original, Blitzkrieg: Burning Horizons focuses on a single country's military force. And, even more specifically, the career of a single individual within its military. It is a game that follows the major battles and turning points of Rommel, one of Germany's greatest Generals and tacticians.
You begin your campaign in 1940, in Europe, and work your way through the ranks by completing various missions. From Europe, you will move on to North Africa, as The Desert Fox, through the assault on Tobruk. Then you return to Europe to deal with the pending Allied invasion.
The beginning of each section of the campaign gives a short history of the coming battle, then takes you to the specific mission orders. For each mission, you see your mission objectives and the area of Europe or Africa where the encounter took place. There is also a map of the AO (Area of Operations), showing the area controlled by your troops and the expected line of advance.
As in the original Blitzkrieg, you will be rated in your ability to manage your troops. As you complete each mission, you will gain or lose points based on your performance as a commander. The skills being assessed are:
Between missions you have the option of upgrading your units. Initially the available upgrades are very limited. But, as the game progresses, newer tanks and artillery become available to you. In some of the missions, it is in your best interest to swap out your artillery units with the 88mm Flak guns.
If you are unfamiliar with the capabilities of the various hardware available to you or the allied forces, there is a great online recognition manual that will give you information on the vehicles and weapons that will be encountered throughout the campaign.
As in Blitzkrieg, the game is played in a Fog of War style. So, sending out scouts is always a good idea to improve your awareness of enemy forces. Officers in infantry squads have binoculars that allow them to see farther in a specific direction, which is nice for spotting enemy units before you get too close and they drop artillery rounds on you.
For the most part, all the structures in the game are destructible in that you can drop artillery on them and they turn into piles of rubble. This is especially useful information when you want to clear out roadblocks and other emplacements. As far as protection for infantry goes, buildings don't seem to supply much. Nor do they seem to make it harder for the infantry to be spotted by enemy units.
Guns need bullets, and bullets don't grow on trees (unlike some games with unlimited ammo). This is where your trucks and haulers come in handy, and why it is important to take/destroy enemy supply depots. Your trucks (and remember, the enemy is doing the same thing) can be used to take much needed ammo to units that are involved in combat, infantry, vehicles and artillery. Trucks are not bottomless buckets of bullets, either. When they have unloaded all the ammo they were carrying, they need to be sent off to the nearest supply depot. You usually have at least one in your starting area (though, there have been a couple of missions where the only supply depots were in enemy hands). Of course, the enemy also has supply depots, and the area around these depots is usually fairly well guarded. If you don't think you will need it for your own use, just drop a few artillery rounds on it to make it go away and deprive your opponents of much needed ammo.
Ammunition is not the only thing that can be supplied to units in the field. Trucks can also replenish personnel that have been killed in combat, so long as at least one member of the squad has survived. Repair trucks can be sent forward to repair damaged vehicles and other emplacements. And medics will help to heal the damage done to the infantry and get them back up on their feet so they can go out and get shot at some more.
The UI is fairly straightforward, when you click on a unit, the panel will adjust to give you the options available for that specific unit. If you have a number of commands that you want to issue you can slow the game speed down to a crawl to allow you the time to issue commands to all the units at once rather than having a few go charging off to their deaths without any support.
For those of you who are new to military style RTSs, the manual that comes with Blitzkrieg: Burning Horizons has an excellent section on managing your troops and basic tactics for the battlefield. It covers everything from manipulation of the infantry to effective uses of artillery and armor, and even a few pages on how to use air support to its fullest potential.
Ok, enough about the technical stuff.
Blitzkrieg: Burning Horizons is a blast. Heh, punny me.
If you haven't played Blitzkrieg, I'd recommend it before leaping into Blitzkrieg: Burning Horizons. Blitzkrieg: Burning Horizons has a great tutorial that will introduce you to the basic controls of the game, but that won't give you the time to get comfortable with the play of the game before you start the campaign. The first scenario drops you right into a confrontation without giving you any sort of courting period to get used to the game. And, you will find yourself being face to face with the Allied Hoards almost immediately.
The series of missions has a good flow following the career of Rommel starting with his command of the 7th Panzer Division. The introductions to the missions will also give you a great history lesson on the battles that he and his units were involved in. Quite a number of them will challenge your tactical skills.
The graphics and detail of the game are excellent and will give you the feeling that you are watching an actual battle in action. The special effects that have been added to the game enhance the game play and enjoyment overall - weather, exploding tanks, dust plumes from collapsing buildings, etc.
Most of the missions were small unit missions and you will have, at most, a company or two to control. There never seemed to be enough infantry...I was taken aback when I got to the attack on Tobruk. The map is huge! There was at least a division, if not more, to manage. Talk about lag on the system! Once the attack started it seemed that all hell broke loose and it became a real challenge to keep all the units under control.
And now, a few complaints (just a few!). Snipers are way too powerful in that when they sneak around and start capping off artillery and gun crews; or, they roam about and kill off entire squads of men without there being any reaction to them. It rather reduced the realism of the game.
Some of the weapon ranges seem to be a bit short, especially for mortars and some of the vehicle guns. Though, there really is no indication of actual scale in the game.
My biggest issue is the pathing of some of the units. At times I had some of my units drive up to the enemy lines to go around a small hill or copse of trees when all I wanted them to do is move over a few meters. This became a real issue when I was in the desert missions as it was hard to figure out the terrain and what the vehicles could and could not traverse.
Blitzkrieg: Burning Horizons is a great sequel to Blitzkrieg allowing for additional missions and a new perspective on WWII. The addition of the "story-line" in following the career of Rommel, added to the game giving it more depth and giving the missions more meaning in the overall campaign. If you're a WWII fan or an RTS fan or both, I'd highly recommend that you take the time to try out Blitzkrieg first, and then don't hesitate to check out Blitzkrieg: Burning Horizons!
I've been gaming since the days of the original TSR D&D and have grown up playing just about every PnP RPG created. Eventually with the age of computers, I started getting into RTS and military strategy games. And then came the MMORPG Asherons Call which changed my computer gaming forever. These days when i'm not gaming I'm working with the Los Padre's Council BSA and my son's Cub Pack - when not conquering the virtual world.
