Steel Fury At Zámoly I Unboxing

At Christmas 1944, the Red Army closed a ring around Budapest. Inside were roughly 80,000 German and Hungarian troops and around 800,000 civilians. Hitler wouldn’t let them break out, so the only answer was to break in. Over the next month, the Germans threw three relief attacks at the ring. The fields around a village called Zámoly, west of the city, turned into a tank graveyard.

That fight is Steel Fury at Zámoly I, the new monster historical module from Advancing Fire. And the “I” means exactly what you think. It’s part one of two.

Getting It

Steel Fury at Zámoly I came out in December 2025. Sebastiano Caltabiano designed all of it, and it leans on Norbert Számvéber’s history of the Konrad relief attacks, The Sword Behind the Shield. The box is about the size of the Orsogna box and opens the same way.

I picked mine up from Ritterkrieg for about $160 on pre-order. It’s $175 there now. If you’re in Europe, order straight from Advancing Fire in Italy or from a shop closer to home. You’ll need Beyond Valor, and Armies of Oblivion for ZAM14.

Contents

• One box
• 13 scenarios*
• 1 campaign game, CG I, To Zámoly!
• 384 full-color, die-cut 5/8″ counters
• 560 full-color, die-cut 1/2″ counters
• Six historical map sheets, four at 38.2″ x 26.0″ and two at 38.2″ x 25.6″, that make one 76.4″ x 77.6″ map of the Zámoly sector
• A rulebook with the ZAM special rules, terrain and campaign game rules

*Scenario ZAM7, Borbalamayor, moves to Steel Fury at Zámoly II.

Breaking Into Budapest

On 20 December 1944, Marshal Tolbukhin’s 3rd Ukrainian Front broke through the line between Lake Velence and Lake Balaton. Székesfehérvár fell on the 23rd. By the 26th, the Soviets were on the Danube at Esztergom, and Budapest was cut off. In the middle of that, the German 4th Cavalry Brigade dug in at Zámoly and held it through the holidays.

The Germans called the relief attacks Konrad. Konrad I jumped off on New Year’s Day from Tata, through the wooded hills of the Gerecse and the Vértes, and stalled near Bicske. On 7 January, General Hermann Breith’s III Panzer Corps attacked north from around Székesfehérvár, with the 1st, 3rd and 23rd Panzer Divisions and the cavalry. Their objective was Zámoly. Konrad II went in from the Esztergom side two days later and got within about 20 km of Budapest before it was called off.

Zámoly is where the southern attack ran into the Soviet 4th Guards Army. Tigers of the Feldherrnhalle heavy tank battalion went in through the fog. Hussars charged under Soviet guns. Soviet airborne troops, fighting as infantry, held the hills south of the village with tanks, assault guns and antitank guns. After about five days, the fields of Zámoly were covered in burned-out tanks, and the Germans had very little ground to show for it.

The last try, Konrad III, came from the south on 18 January. It reached the Danube and retook Székesfehérvár, then stopped about 25 km short of the city. Buda fell on 13 February. The fighting came back past Zámoly in March, when the Soviets opened their drive on Vienna.

Here’s the whole campaign on one map. The letters match the chronology beside it, and the box marks the scenario map further down.

A Six-and-a-Half-Foot Map

The six map sheets make a monster. I laid them out on our living room floor, and the whole thing is about 6.5 feet square. I’d need four or five of those folding Costco tables to set it up. The sheets are numbered 2, 3, 5, 6, 8 and 9, which leaves room for more in part two.

The art is all Advancing Fire’s own. There are ten levels of elevation, and they come in two flavors. A black crest line works like a normal ASL crest line. A red one marks a gentle slope and acts more like a hillock, and it costs less to cross. It’s simpler than the colored crest lines in Biazza Ridge, which confused a lot of us, me included.

The map has the real history printed on it, too. There are historical minefields, trenches and shell holes, plus a deep snow area for 7 to 11 January. The woods are oddly open, with gaps that make for some strange lines of sight.

The Rulebook

The rulebook is 30 pages, full color, on semi-gloss paper with no hard cover. About half is rules and new vehicle notes. The rest is the campaign game, some history, an interview with Norbert Számvéber, and a German aerial recon photo taken on 16 January 1945.

It’s winter, so there’s snow, winter camouflage and mist. Rout is tweaked a little. There are rules for snipers, damaged wire, dummy trenches, OBA, air support and German artillery observer teams. The terrain section runs from boulevards to vineyards, with mud flats, silos, sunken lanes and partially sunken roads along the way. All the buildings are stone and one level tall.

The Counters

Advancing Fire’s counters have come a long way since Biazza Ridge and Bréville Assault. They’re flat and cleanly cut on semi-gloss stock, and the big single-man silhouettes on the leaders and heroes look great.

My one gripe is the Russian brown. It’s dark enough that the small text gets lost, especially the red large-target markings on the Lend-Lease Shermans. My sheets even came in two or three slightly different shades. The German counters pop, though.

Two things to know before you play. First, a white vehicle silhouette here means winter camouflage, not open-topped. An M4 Sherman isn’t open-topped, whatever color it’s painted. Second, the diamond around the morale on some elite units just tells two kinds of elite squads apart, like 6-5-8s and 6-4-8s.

Thirteen Fights Around Zámoly

The scenario cards are on thick paper rather than card stock, in full color with the counter art. Some of them are big fights in their own right, running onto the back of another card. Most are set between 7 and 11 January. Two go back to Christmas, and ZAM14 jumps ahead to 16 March, with Hungarian armored recon troops and the SS Totenkopf at Borbála.

Card places are approximate, especially numbered hills like Point 203, which aren’t named on modern maps. Its numbers match the table under it.

To Zámoly!

The campaign game, To Zámoly!, starts on 8 January and runs three campaign dates with a refit phase between each. A date lasts at least 11 turns and ends by turn 13, so you’re looking at around 33 to 39 turns in all. Even the campaign game doesn’t use the whole map. It plays on all six sheets, but only about half of three of them, roughly 6.5 by 4 feet. That might squeeze onto a couple of big tables.

I didn’t spot any purchase tables for the refit phase. Maybe you fight with what you’ve got until one side runs out, but I’ll have to read closer.

The rulebook mentions four campaign games, but only the first is in this box. Part two has the other three. Fair warning. The map numbering gaps make me think part two adds sheets 1, 4 and 7 to this layout, but that’s my guess. I asked in the Advancing Fire group whether the two halves will link up into one giant historical, and I’m still waiting to hear.

Where to Buy

Ritterkrieg, $175 (US and North America)

Advancing Fire (EU)

Debriefing

Steel Fury at Zámoly I looks fantastic, and Advancing Fire’s production keeps getting better. It’s also huge. A map this big looks amazing. Unless you’re on VASL, though, playing a game across that much paper is another story. I’d love to see more historicals sized like Chef-du-Pont, with a campaign game you can actually finish.

If the topic grabs you and you can afford it, buy it now. Third-party historicals are usually one-and-done, and this one will disappear someday. Then start with a scenario or two before you try to clear the living room floor.

Academy Out!

GET TO THE CHOPPA…!!!

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