A Little Bit of RCW Action using 1914 Rules

 I was the sole attendee again at Julian's last night, so we had another go at "1914" with our RCW figures. In the last three games, I have been the attacker, with greater numbers of lower quality troops. I have always felt that, to quote (very appropriately) Joseph Stalin "Quantity has a quality of its own" with these rules. Starting with an extra 10 or more activation points gives the larger force of lower quality troops quite an advantage, I think. This time, I had the smaller, higher quality troops in defensive position, whilst Julian had almost twice as many, lower quality troops to attack with - would I be able to reverse the result of the previous three games, and lead my smaller force to victory? Read on and find out!

My OOB - Julian added a cavalry unit to each command. As you can see, I had a total of 15 activation points, I think Julian had 24 or 26.

The table - Bolsheviks were defending on the left long side, the attackers could enter from anywhere on the bottom or right table edge. The pieces of paper are blinds - 5 actual positions and 5 fakes to keep the attacker guessing. We have not used this technique a lot previously but both Julian and I like the fact that the attackers don't know exactly where the defending troops are located before they deploy

He does not look like his name is Scott-Kerr, does he?!

Sailors standing in for the Grenadier Guards

Substitute for the Coldstream's

And the Irish Guards, with inspiring Bolshevik Heroine as their leader!

Latvian Rifle regiment in Adrian helmet, representing dismounted cavalry

And the mounted versions

Julian's 6 battalions of lower grade infantry - one less base per unit, one higher score on the dice for a hit

We each had a two-gun artillery battery

White Cossacks

Early in move one, the Whites have advanced in force and unmasked one of my blinds

Under the direction of their female commissar, the "Irish Guards" put up a stout resistance

Just before they were eliminated by the 4:1 odds of the Whites deployed against them, I played this card and inflicted another base of loss on Julians attackers with combined rifle and HMG fire.

The Cavalry and "Grenadier Guards" who had started the game to the rear of the woods occupied by the now defunct Irish Guards, redeployed as quickly as possible to the dead ground behind the redoubt. My only real hope was to feed fresh replacement units into the defensive position and hope they could inflict enough damage on Julian that his attack ran out of steam

The White artillery (and the detached HMG on the high ground in the middle of the pic, did great work for Julian, gradually whittling down the defending sailors and eventually, both my artillery pieces

Almost all of the attacking White units had taken damage from the "Irish", but they all still survived as tactical units.

View from the White side at the halfway point - Julian had played a card that forced my sailors to fall back from the firing line in the redoubt (top right)

Four regiments of White infantry move through the woods to get into position to bring the redoubt under fire

The adjacent tree line, lined with White riflemen and HMG

All my units were carrying casualty markers, the sailors had lost a base and their HMG, and had been replaced in the redoubt by the "Coldstreams"

The defenders stand firm - for now

But soon they were forced to pull back, while the artillery battery was reduced to half strength, and soon thereafter, was destroyed completely

The Cossacks, sensing victory, moved forward..... and obviously, things then got a bit hectic, because I have not taken any more photos, even though the game went on a bit longer. The Cossacks advanced round the back of the woods and attempted to charge but failed the test to cross the intervening fence line. My dismounted cav then pivoted to face them and gave them a couple of decent rounds of fire, removing a base. However, I was down to about 10 activation points and Julian still had all bar two of what he started with, having only lost one entire unit. The Quality of Quantity had been proved once again, and the remaining Bolsheviks retired to lick their wounds (or face the Cheka firing squads, perhaps?!)

Obviously not as satisfying game from my perspective but I was okay with the result, as it was pretty much what I had expected to happen. With the topography of the battlefield, plenty of cover for the Whites to advance through etc, it always seemed unlikely I would be able to kill enough of the enemy before their superior numbers told, and that proved to be the case. I have benefited from this in our previous games, so I can't complain when it comes back at me!

Last pic for today is of my son Michael, who turned 21 today. We had a family brunch at a local cafe which he chose, because it's one of the few that is licensed, and he could get a beer at 1030am. Obviously he is a chip off the old block - I joined him in a libation to mark the auspicious occasion!

A Few More Bolsheviks

 Another batch of Brigade Games RCW Bolshevik infantry match off he painting desk, with another six nearly completed

The great thing about RCW/BoB is the ability to have some "speculative" details. Uniform Regulations in a revolutionary Socialist state are pretty fluid, so I challenge anyone to prove no Bolshevik infantry had red piping on their caps!

The fourth base is a bit different, the male heads having been lopped off and replaced with a female version from one of a number of sources

I had always intended to convert most, if not all of the Brigade Games figures to females, but the original miniatures are so nice, I have left most of them in their original state so far

I think the heads work pretty well with the bodies....

..... and with each other!

The next six figures awaiting completion have also had the head swap treatment and should be ready for a post in a few days. Until then, stay safe and well, and enjoy life. God Save The King! :)

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!