Last night, Julian, Rick and I had another run through of "Red Actions". We have our annual wargaming week planned for the end of July this year, and Back of Beyond/Russian Civil War is one of the periods we will be playing, so we want to get a few games under our belts so it is not "the blind leading the blind" when we get the troops out at Tarawera!

Rick and I both brought troops along but Julian had sufficient for the scenario he had planned, and had all the units laid out on the table when we arrived, so they were surplus to requirements. However it was not a total loss, as Julian has retained my RCW figures for a game with the rest of the guys tomorrow at Barry's place, which I am unable to attend - so there may be some images of them on Marks 1866 blog in due course!

Julian set up a pretty simple scenario - better quality Whites with less troops defending a village cross roads from more numerous but lower quality Bolsheviks - talk about type casting!

We played through the game, testing out how some things worked, and getting our heads around some of the intricacies of the rules. Neither side really gained an advantage although Rick destroyed three of my units by the end of the game, both HMG's and one unit of infantry.

Below - initial set up. The Whites were numerically disadvantaged but had an extra HMG, two mortars and a field gun to counter the Bolshevik armoured car and extra troops

The Red advance on the right led by an armoured car

Red cavalry - Julian had only just got these additions based, so had not yet had time to add flock etc

One of Ricks White infantry units in their starting position. All the figures are from the outstanding Copplestone range.

General view of the White defensive set up - cavalry were on the right of this image

Situation after a couple of moves - the White field gun caused me to reposition my cavalry in the cover of the woods, before they were wiped out!

The aforesaid cavalry taking cover behind the woods

The Whites begin a cautious advance 

The White cavalry makes a rapid move to attempt to outflank me

View above the wood in the centre of the Bolshevik line - cavalry and two units of conscript infantry seeking cover from White firepower

Positions after several more turns - the Bolsheviks are pushing forward on the left but the White air force was about to intervene.....

As the White cavalry move left, the HMG in the turret of my armoured car rattles into action

My armoured car did a good deal of damage to the white cavalry, knocking a platoon (base) off each unit, killing the commander and forcing the survivors to pull back into the cover of the forest

The second White cavalry unit makes a tactical withdrawal sans officier!

Meanwhile, the Red cavalry emerge from cover and move right to counter the battered White cossacks

While on the other flank, my conscript cavalry move to outflank the White infantry

The position on the map at about this point in the game - note there is one less Red infantry unit to the right of the central woods - they were wiped out by White artillery fire.

Red infantry enters the woods to confront their White counterparts

The remaining unit of Red cavalry sweeps around behind the White flank - the other unit had been attacked from the air in two successive turns and were in poor shape at this stage

The armoured car advances up the road but its MG fire against Rick's gun teams was ineffective

The White field gun that played an important role in the game

Final view of the Red cavalry facing their White opposite numbers on the Red right/White left flank

Roughly the position of the forces as the game ended in a draw. The White infantry in the centre hardly moved, bus they were defending the road junction, that was fair enough! Note the absence of both Red HMG's, wiped out by White fire.

Rick as usual had some appallingly poor dice rolling, which was lucky for me, as with more luck, the field gun would have taken out several more units - I really must get one of those! In our three games so far, the Reds have never had any artillery support....not that Julian is biased towards the Tsarist forces or anything :). It was a good shake out of the rules and we learned a few more things to keep in mind at Tarawera. Julian is running another RCW scenario on Sunday at Barry's and hopefully we will get in a few more "field days" at his place over the next 6-8 weeks.