Baltic Bolsheviks

John brought a revised version of his Neil Thomas style RCW rules down to try at the club. This scenario featured a White army operating in the Baltic states trying to break through to Petrograd,opposed by a horde of Bolsheviks, under the somewhat tenuous command of one Joseph Stalin. Myself and Tim C took the forces of regressive authoritarianism, whilst Tim G and Jerry took the progressive forces of socialism.

Our chaps come bravely plodding on.  Most of the White infantry were poor quality, apart from a special 'tank shock' battalion and a company of dodgy looking Swedes. Keen eyed readers will notice that the Whites have some tanks. IRL these were provided by a helpful British government, along with crews and logistic support.

Hordes of Reds lurking amongst the woods, villages and swamps. In the far distance are some ex-Imperial palaces. The Reds are all dug in, but fortunately only have a single artillery battery with which to worry the tanks.

Our chaps walk into a hail of lead. While the tanks were largely immune, their effects were principally moral and they had very little actual firepower as they represented tiny numbers of vehicles. Our mission was to get some infantry off the far edge, so the tanks had to shepherd them forwards. Tanks cannot enter broken terrain except on a road, hence them having to manouvre around all the terrain.

One of our Regiments advances through the marshes. The enemy fire is quite impressive!

The Whites finally got the hang of infantry-tank cooperation and managed to push quite a big hole in the Red lines. Our green infantry kept running away and hiding ,and by now the ranks were looking a bit thin. After many shots, the Red artillery actually managed to hit a tank unit.

It was all too little, too late, and over on the left a tank unit, accompanied by the remains of the 'tank shock' battalion managed to rout the final line of defenders and push on to glory in the very last turn. Historically the tanks aided a White breakthrough, but eventually the Whites were stopped and forced to retreat by overwhelming numbers and the tanks were withdrawn by train.

This was an excellent little game, the mechanisms worked very well (particularly the tank rules) and we managed to get through 12 turns and to a final result in an hour and a half.