Introduced another local gamer to our Mud & Blood-powered Russian Civil War gaming on Sunday afternoon, it was a good little game although my attacking Whites kind of stampeded his defending Bolsheviks, despite the heavy machinegun they had to assist.
The scenario was another lift out of the great M&B scenario book, Stout Hearts & Iron Troopers, this time the very first scenario, “Attack on a Strongpoint”, which has two infantry sections with an HMG defending against an attacking platoon.
My attacking Whites were able to stay mostly in cover until they were very close to the edge of the hamlet, screening themselves from that lethal machinegun for the most part. There were a few tense moments when the MG caught one White section and another was thrown back after attempting to close assault one of the Red sections, but then the gun jammed, I was able to get another section in to launch a brutal close assault on the same Red section, and on the other flank my single flanking section poured some terrifyingly accurate rifle fire into the other Red section, and it was all over.
Here’s the table fairly early in the game, with my Whites in the foreground advancing and Reds visible on the edge of the hamlet.
The one White Blind (the Russian tricolour marker on the far side of the table) is a rifle section I was able to keep on Blinds right until I got them to the hedgeline behind the church, where they unmasked and proceed to slam the Red machinegun in a hail of fire. Units coming off Blinds get bonus dice to fire, which proved devastating.
We’ll hopefully get a chance to do a larger RCW game in the next few weeks, but today’s smaller game was interesting and Nathan was interested in another go at the system sometime in the future. I’ve got another fifteen or so Bolsheviks to get off the painting table sometime soon, which will finally give me enough Red figures that they don’t have to be on the defensive all the time!
Oh, and I also have an inbound order from Copplestone with some shiny new stuff. It won’t be just infantry in our RCW games shortly, let’s just say!
Very nice table Brian! It is a relief to see nice games on small tables (I have a shortage of space myself…)
I hate to admit that your reports do tend to pique my interest in the RCW; might be a hard-sell to the wife though but worth a try.
Thanks, Greg.
This table was roughly 4’x4′ or so (I can never remember how wide the tables up at the university are, and I should…), which makes for a good tight game. It does disadvantage the defenders, though, as they have less time to shoot the hell out of the attackers!
The RCW is fascinating to me, the more I read the more bizarre it gets. Not a war with clearcut “good guys” and “bad guys” either, really, which is one of the things that interests me. I’ve just ordered a batch of RCW books from the UK, will be reviewing those here on the Warbard when they come in.
Looking forward to the reviews!