Russian Civil War Game with "1914"

 Today, Julian and I had a five-hour game of 1914 by Great Escape Games. pitting the White Russians (defending) against the Bolshevik hordes. The action was loosely based on one of the scenarios that comes with the rules - in which the attackers are the Germans, with six battalions of regular infantry (3 bases each plus attached mg) and three battalions of Jaegers (4 bases each plus attached mg), supported by two batteries of field guns, comprising three guns per battery; and the defenders are a smaller but better quality force of three infantry battalions as per above, two batteries of two guns each, and three units of the Household cavalry, who can fight as dismounted infantry. Once again, Julian volunteered to take the smaller, defending force, with a total of 24 activation points, against my Bolshevik force with 33 activation points. Julian had another disadvantage, in that he had a split command, so that his activation points had to be used by the appropriate brigade, infantry or cavalry, which potentially limited his freedom of action EG if the cavalry were not really engaged, they still had to use their portion of activation points, he could not use them to activate infantry, and vice versa.

These rules run a bit quicker than our standard multi player Sunday games, so I did not take the usual number of pics - I think there are around twenty in total - hopefully enough to build a reasonable narrative of the game.

The battlefield - Bolsheviks absent and Whites not yet in position

Initial set up - attacking Bolsheviks to the left, Whites represented by "blinds". A Bolshevik unit must be within 16" and then roll 4+ on D6 to reveal if a blind is real or fake

Right flank had one artillery battery deployed, with Red Sailors (the Jaegers) in dead ground to their rear

Action opened on the other flank. where my second battery pounded one of Julian's smaller two-gun equivalents

As it happened, though, their early success did not last, and combined artillery and hmg fire soon whittled them away, and this unit disappeared from the field relatively quickly, taking two activation points with them..... :(

The White units that devastated my left flank battery, safely ensconced in their redoubt

The first unit of sailors probes the White left wing ....

.... and discovered two White infantry units waiting in ambush. As Julian noted, however, this was one of the least effective ambushes in military history - luckily for me! Over a series of activations, the sailors, supported by the artillery and a couple of hmg's on the high ground, pummeled both White units until they were wiped out. 

A unit of Red infantry close to breaking point, having lost 50% of its strength. The hmg did assist in the destruction of the above White units, however.

These were the culprits, dismounted high quality cavalry firing from the corner of the redoubt

A couple of views of the position as seen from behind the White lines - at this stage, I was feeling like this was going to be too tough a nut to crack...

The sailors in the wood are concealed and cannot be fired at (or fire out) in this position

The Whites watch the empty plain to their front, as three battalions of Bolsheviks redeploy, concealed in the dead ground on the far side of the battlefield

The Reds continue their redeployment to the right

The second Bolshevik regiment in dead ground on the right flank, waiting to advance and support the sailors

The other regiment of three battalions continues the redeployment

Julian's position was still looking pretty secure at the stage although fortuitously for me, the unit in the top right was in the open and under fire by artillery, hmg and rifle fire, and was soon also driven from the field. The gap is where the second White artillery unit used to be. They redeployed to the flank but had the misfortune to suffer a massive stonk from my artillery and never got a chance to fire another shot in anger before exiting the stage...

The Red attack starts to get into its stride (finally, after about three and a half hours play!), with one regiment in the woods in front of the redoubt, whilst what is left of the sailors and the second regiment work their way around the open flank. My second battery were star players, rarely failing an activation (even when a 5 or 6 was required) and regularly getting 4 or 5 hits (from a possible total of 6) when they fired

Julian's position when we called the game as a Red win - only two units of dismounted cavalry and one gun remaining from the initial eight units. The Bolsheviks lost a decent number of men too, but tellingly, only three full units, the first gun battery and a unit each of sailors and red infantry - so activation points dropped from 33 to 27, but Julian was probably down to about ten by the end. His cavalry remounted their horses and headed for the horizon!

Heroes of the Russian Socialist Republic! (With kind assistance from one of my gallant opponents' guns!)

Good game, four full turns I think (a turn can take an hour when there are nearly 60 activation tokens in play!) and a lot going on. I had some bad dice rolling with the first battery and it got hammered pretty quickly, but fortunately for me, Julian did not target the second battery, and so it was able to provide some very accurate and destructive support, and basically, won the battle for me by destroying two units of infantry, a cavalry unit and the second White artillery battery.

Hopefully you enjoyed the AAR almost as much as we enjoyed the game. We both agreed, these are pretty good rules, with a lot to think about, and a very nice frisson of unpredictability often missing from more traditional UGO-IGO rules. Thoroughly recommend them if that is the type of gaming experience you are looking for.

Thanks for the visit and please do leave a comment!