Sunday Game - Russian Civil War/Back of Beyond

As mentioned, last Sunday our usual group less Mark who had commitments elsewhere, met at Barry's place to enjoy six hours of 28mm madness "somewhere" in the Russian east, circa 1920. Julian came up with the scenario, provided the rules (Red Action from The Perfect Captain) and the bulk of the figures. Barry provided the venue and his recently painted Copplestone Warlord Chinese troops, Rick provided an armoured train, tracks and the Czech Legion and I provided my own Bolshevik troops, a mixture of Copplestone and Brigade with a few Siberia Miniatures added in.

A relatively simple scenario...at one end of the twelve by six table was a small town defended by around six units of White infantry, firmly ensconced in trenches and supported by artillery and HMG's. These were commanded by Adrian and John. The attackers were Barry (against John) with his Chinese and Paul, using Bolshevik troops from Julian's collection (against Adrian). At the other end of the table, connected to the besieged town by a railway line, was Ricks armoured train coming to the rescue, supported by Cossack cavalry, again supplied by Julian, and commanded by Chris on one side of the track and Julian himself on the other. Between Pauls rear and Chris, I had six battalions of my infantry supported by one gun supplied by Julian, HMG's and a "little tank"....in this case the French FT7. We also had a random chance of having a Red aircraft come on to support us for three consecutive actions....as it happened, it arrived just in time to witness the end of the game.

Very briefly, the train advanced quite slowly along its line, with Red artillery and my tank taking potshots at it each turn. I believe I hit the engine once with my gun (before it was put out of action by HMG fire from the train) once with my tank and the Paul administered the coup de grace by getting the fatal third hit as the train got to the three quarters point of its journey. In addition, my tank also scored a hit on the dreaded HMG wagon...SIX HMG's !!!.  Meanwhile, Chris had more success than expected against my infantry, destroying two HMG teams, two infantry battalions and the artillery piece for the loss of one cavalry unit and one tachanka, but Paul won the game for the Reds by cleverly scoring several flukey direct hits on Adrian with his artillery, forcing the White infantry to quit their protective trenches and fall back into the town. Barry and John traded shots but neither gained advantage over the other. Julian's advance on Barry's rear was too slow to be any threat. At about three thirty in the afternoon, our umpire Julian declared the game a total Red victory...and as he was commanding White troops, we can be sure he was not biased in our favour!

My main contribution to our victory was that I read the rules over breakfast and thus was able to point out the huge artillery piece on Ricks train was not allowed to fire unless the train was stationary, which stymied his plan somewhat...plus I held back three battalions in a secondary line and had them spend four actions digging trenches, which slowed Chris up despite his success against the first line.



Below are the images as follows...hopefully😀
My unit cards
Ricks Czech Legion train ..a Company B model
"Officer" company of White troops commanded by Adrian
Some of my Bolshevik troops
More of my figures
Adrian's defensive position
Fighting under Tovarich Lenins image
White Cossack cavalry under Chris disperse my first defensive line
Johns Whites defending against Barry's Chinese
Chinese Warlord infantry
Chinese command and support weapons
Cossacks pursue routing Bolsheviks< br /> Train steams past Bolshevik trenches
Chinese truck mounted HMG takes on the armoured train
Entrenched Bolshevik infantry await the Cossacks
Cossacks charge a battalion of female Bolsheviks
The train disappears towards the besieged town
Pauls Bolsheviks advance against Adrian
Female Bolsheviks routing...they were destroyed by the pursuing Cossacks..the Cads!
HMG carriage knocked out by tank fire
Victory for Pauls Bolsheviks
Train engine hit for a third time
The game was called as a Red Victory!