Saturday 14 April 2018

RCW action at the club

DennisC brought out his 20mm Russian Civil War collection for a rare go of it.  I volunteered to help out and frankly play with much of his collection as I had painted much of it quite a few years ago.

Using a simple but sort of frustrating rule set (d10 dice employed with usually needing a 9 or 10 for hits)  which is a 10% chance...and I can not and did not roll many in all the rolls I did this game...
Sigh.

Dennis had me as a Red.  What? a commie bast***d?!  Oh, well.

Hugh, my comrade, had five infantry units and a gun to attack two White units embedded in protective woods and also had to cross rough ground muddy fields (half moves) to get to them and one of our objectives.  He had a tough time of it unfortunately.
Hugh's initial postion on the left, The two White units on the road would quickly seek the protection of the woods behind them.  One of the objectives is the building with the yellow star beside it.

I had a lead of two FT-17 WWI era former French mini tanks and some rather ineffective (as it turned out) mortars to help my three infantry units come from the far right flank to take the hill our other objective.
My contingent with the two tanks leading. The elite Women's Brigade can be seen next to the hill leading the movement of my infantry in that direction while the tanks would continue along the road. My dubious 'artillery support' of mortars are the wagons near the road and rail line.

Yeah, OK I had a train appear with a big gun and another mortar and yet later a band of horsemen but these would start much further from our goals. The train was blocked by debris on the tracks and so could only offer long range fire and with my typical very poor dice rolling, offered little in support.

Apparently during the scenario development, Dennis did not contemplate the tanks taking on a 'blitzkrieg' type operations as I used them to run them up the hill to take that position despite the artillery arrayed.  While 'winning' the game in this lightning strike, it was agreed I would need to bring up some infantry to secure the position.  My poor dice rolling had my units move ever so slowly. (the rules have each unit move a small distance in inches + a d10 dice roll...which I would consistently roll 4 or less each time!) My units moving in a flanking move moved very slowly indeed.... Another few hours of gaming might have brought us that conclusion but the evening was done and so an unlikely very minor victory for the Reds was the result.  
My tanks would continue along the roads and up the hill later in the game and take the White position and their artillery positioned there on. The second yellow objective marker can be barely visible on the far side of the steep hill.