Russian Re-Run

I  do not often re-run scenarios as I find that can sometimes become a sterile practice. However I left my planning for Tuesday's game a little late, so I recycled a game from before Christmas as I reckoned that about half the players hadn't played it.

For this session we had two people in Shedquarters. These were Tim and Phil, returning after an absence that has been too long, thanks to the good offices of Chelsea who is helping him out, now he has been discharged from hospital.

On-line we had Jon - commanding the Reds with Phil - and Ian, leading the Whites with Tim. The Reds have numbers on their side, but one of their Regiments is made up of conscripts, so has a "Will to Combat" of 0 (as in "Zero"). They do have some cavalry, but the Whites have an armoured car.

The aim of the game is to destroy the enemy army and capture the railway crossing and the village. The Whites went first, and set off immediately at full speed. Ian was worried about the cavalry in the centre of the Red line, and that dominated his thinking for the game.

So much so that he threw a lot of command actions into his artillery unit, and started to shell the cavalry early doors.

Because it's Phil he looked for an open flank, and sent off an infantry column to turn the White left. He also made certain of the wood on the Red right, by setting up a firing line on its edge. Ian, nervous about the cavalry, deployed a unit into a firing line in the centre of the table.

Phil moved the cavalry out from under the bombardment, taking the extra risk on the damage, which he got away with. The Whites formed another firing line in response.

Looking for a way to counter the cavalry, the Whites pushed their armoured car up the road. It machine gunned the cavalry, but to little effect.

Jon immediately deployed his artillery and dropped a salvo on the armoured car. Being out of activations it was unable to drive out from under.

A wider shot shows a unit of Red conscripts heading up the road to the village.

So, some photos missing here. The unit in the field to the left of the armoured car had deployed into a firing line, but Phil swung an attack column "mass" into its flank, and broke it, having taken a few casualties.

Tim tried to extricate his armoured car from the bombardment, but alas it blew up. Armoured vehicles seem to have a short lifespan in this game.

With the armoured car a smoking wreck, the cavalry are at last unleashed. It is a tense encounter, but the brave infantrymen stand shoulder to shoulder and deliver a close range volley.

The cavalry are repelled in what is effectively a stand off.

The Red conscripts, driven on against their wishes, surge into the village, ending the turn.

Winning the initiative at the start of the next turn enabled the Reds to occupy the village and deploy in a firing line. Ian's response was to form up into a Mass and charge in with the bayonet. The Whites were driven off after a short melee, with little harm done.

Jon switched his artillery to shell the White infantry protecting the artillery. When the artillery was ordered to switch targets, it thought better of it, refused to obey orders then limbered up and galloped off the table.

Having previously been repulsed by formed infantry, Phil's cavalry throw themselves into the rear of the infantry falling back from the earlier infantry flank attack.

Having crashed through the retreating infantry, the cavalry sweep round preparatory to charging that infantry line in the flank, once the artillery barrage has lifted. The beleaguered White infantry in the centre of the board form a firing line on the edge of the field to hold off the oncoming attacks. 

The Red infantry close, and open fire. There are a lot of unallocated hits about now.

Meanwhile, over on the Red left in the village the conscripts see off another White attack. When the final tally is done, the Whites are destroyed.

The final act of the game sees Phil launch a charge on the troops in the field. They have taken too much damage and are overwhelmed. That's enough to break what remains of the Whites, so the Reds claim a big win.

That was a very satisfying game for me. The balance between players in Shedquarters and on-line was much better. The ideal set up seems to be the two army commanders on-line with sub commanders/lead pushers round the table. Hopefully as restrictions lift and people become more confident this is where we will end up. The whole game was done and dusted in just under three hours.

The previous play of this scenario was written up here. It resulted in a win for the Whites, and despite there being some rule changes between then and now, perhaps the scenario is more balanced than I previously thought. Either that or Jon is a tactical genius.

More RCW on the cards next week, plus an experiment to switch to Google Meet instead of Zoom.