Order of Battle's next expansions are focused on Russia By Ian Boudreau

The next series of DLC expansions for Order of Battle will cover the Russian perspective of World War II, and the first, Red Star, comes out this week. Matrix Games has announced the first of a trilogy of expansions will launch August 8.

According to the new Steam page for Red Star, this first pack covers Soviet army missions from 1938-1941, beginning with the Battle of Lake Khasan and continues to Khalkhin Gol, both conflicts against Imperial Japan. After that, the action jumps to the European front for missions starting in 1939.

Here's the full list of 13 scenarios included in this pack:

Lake Khasan 1938 (border conflict, with Japan, Manchuria)

Khalkin Gol, main Japanese attack in June 1939 (border conflict with Japan, Mongolia)

Khalkin Gol, Soviet counter-strike in early August 1939 to defeat the Japanese

Grodno, September 1939 (vs. Poland)

Invasion of Karelia, start of the Winter War vs. Finland, late 1939

Summa 1939, Finnish attacks after the 1st Soviet attempt to defeat this key part of the Mannerheim Line failed

Summa 1940, player leads the second major attempt to break through at Summa

Viipuri 1940, concludes the Winter War

Rasainiai, first battle in summer 1941 vs. strong German attacks

Smolensk, player needs to defend the region of Smolensk

Yelnya, first planned Soviet offensive of the war near Smolensk

Rostov, first liberation of a bigger Soviet city, albeit only temporarily

Moscow, player has to stop German attacks, then lead the Soviet counter-offensive

As usual, you'll also have access to new units and new specializations with Red Star, and since it's the beginning of a planned trio of expansions, it's likely you'll be able to carry progress over into subsequent DLCs.

This will be the twelfth add-on pack for Order of Battle, and in general they've just gotten better over time. I've written about a few of them over the last couple years here, starting with Burma Road (review). We've seen the Eastern Front handled from the German perspective in Panzerkrieg (review) already, so it'll be nice to revisit that side of the conflict from the Soviet side.