RCW with OHW

I needed a stopgap for Tuesday night's game, having had a busy last few days, so I bolted together another pair of Neil Thomas' scenarios and dragged out my Russian Civil War figures.

The game is a mash up of "Flank Attack" 1 & 2. I had to rotate the second scenario to make it all fit on the table sensibly, but it seemed to go together okay. In the distance the Whites are trying to exit the road/table edge to the left with three units. This is held by a small blocking Red force. All the Whites are strung out along the road. The remaining Reds come on from the far table edge.

Nearer the camera the Reds hold the big hill. The Whites must clear this and hold it at the game end to secure the flank of the exiting column. They have infiltrated a force round to the edge of the table near the camera, and have a holding force to the right.

Jon put his hand up for the Whites and sent me his dispositions. When everyone logged in it turned out that no one else had read the briefing, and after a short round of "After you Claude" Richard was press ganged into becoming Red Leader and rapped out some quick deployments.

The Whites moved first, and immediately exploited the speed of their cavalry to get round the rear of the hill and, in the distance, head for a gap in the Red defences to exit the board.

The first round of firing inflicted some damage.

The Reds replied with their deployed units, and inflicted some hits in return.

The troops round the big hill got locked into a protracted firefight. This is inevitable with this iteration of OHW, which has no close combat rules and also prevents moving and shooting. I might let cavalry move and shoot in future games, if there are any.

Jon's cavalry - Cossacks to a man - seem to have broken through the Red lines, and are heading for safety. The rest of his column is being encircled a bit. Where will he find his third escapee from?

The Bolsheviks defending the hill lose their first unit to concentrated firepower.

In fact the exchanges are pretty murderous on both sides. Ian, in charge of the Reds, loses another unit, and Will finds his force cut in half.

His cavalry having escaped, the pocket round Jon closes in. He's lost a unit to enemy action too, and his artillery is conducting the rearguard. I should point out at this juncture that both commanders were convinced and were both vocal about how impossible it was for their army to win the game.

More Red hill defenders die, as the Whites start to roll up their defences from the flank

Some lucky shooting inflicts a lot of damage on the cavalry and artillery.

Jon destroys one of the Red units in front of him, and severely damages another (15 hits to remove a unit). Can he punch a hole through the defensive line? I should note here that I have made it more difficult in this scenario by introducing ZOC rules. Not sure if they are an improvement or not.

Another round of firing, and another Red unit is about to be taken off.

Richard plugs the gap with his spare cavalry unit.

Phil continues his steady advance along the ridge line. Ian is in desperate straights now.

Jon's last infantry unit goes, as Phil gallops his cavalry across to try and bail him out. He needs to get them into that square next to the "G", so he can exit and fulfil the victory conditions. Or can Jon's artillery limber up and find a route off? The clock is ticking down.

Ian's last unit on the hill is nearly broken. It looks like the Whites have won on this half of the table.

Phil destroys Ian's last unit on the hill, and then concentrates on trying to blast a way off the table. Jon has ridden his artillery off to divert the Red attention.

The Reds are clinging on, and have inflicted enough damage on one of Phil's infantry units that it will be removed at the end of the turn.

The Whites blow away the blocking infantry force... have they found a way out?

Richard throws a cavalry unit in the way - the Reds move second - to prevent the exit.

Damn! I missing some pictures here of the last turn. Essentially, the Whites can't find away off the table, due to ZOCs. In shuffling units around at the end they leave open a gap in the line and the Red cavalry nip through and occupy the hill. Game ends. According to the victory conditions it is a complete Red victory.

[I have to say that sometimes I'm not a fan of victory conditions. They can be so focussed that anything else that happens is irrelevant. Get three units off the table at the cost of half your army, whilst the enemy pursue? Cling on to the corner of a hill top whilst the enemy army sweeps round you? I tend more to the idea that you defeat the enemy militarily and then you can do pretty much what you want. 

But I digress.]

For a One Hour Wargame it kept us occupied for 1 1/2 - 2 hours with varying degrees of satisfaction. The OHW scenarios do have a knack of coming down to the wire, but Jon observed that this might be due to the attritional nature of the game. He's a clever bloke with the numbers 'n all, so he's probably right. How much it looked like the RCW I can't say. I think the rules need a close assault option at the very least, and some tactical factors like enfilading when firing (although I may have observed this before).

Next week we have an evening off. I'm going to see Jethro Tull (much delayed from last year some time), Jon is having his basement rebuilt and Richard is doing something too, so short on game hosters. 

The week after, who can say?