The Battle for Baku, August/September 1918

 Another Dominion of the Red and White scenario, this time the Battle of Baku in August-September 1918. I suppose strictly speaking this is more of a WW1 engagement than a RCW one, but the Red Army occupied Baku for some time, fighting the Ottomans and various rebellious locals to control the oil supplies. Armenian nationalists threw them out and massacred the local Azerbaijani population while they were at it, the Ottomans formed an Islamic Army of Turkish troops and Azerbaijanis to eject the Armenians. Concerned about the threat to oil supplies, the British despatched 'Dunsterforce' to aid the defenders.

That is a very potted history, a more comprehensive account of the whole sorry mess is on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Baku

Anyway here is the Dominion take on it. Battlefield from the southeast. Baku is on a peninsular on the Caspian Sea, and can be seem at the bottom of the screen. The combined Armenian/British force is holding an arc around the city, while the Turks close in. Imagine the Caucasus Mountains stretching off to the right and left. There are rail lines along the coast from the town and the large hill on the right is part of the lower foothills of the mountains. 

The figures etc are all from my 6mm WW1 Middle Eastern and African collection. The cloth is one of the first gridded cloths I made up, over 20 years ago to play 'Square Bashing' on. The 'Caspian Sea' is just a bit of dark blue cloth but adds to the look of the thing.

The Allied defenders. The front line is primarily held by Armenian infantry. These are large distances thinly held. Dunsterforce was quite small, about 1000 men, but supported by armoured cars, aircraft and fully motorised. They are elite and disciplined (dug in).

In reserve is another Armenian unit, this one is disciplined as there was a range of hills around the city itself, the final defence line, which I'm treating as being dug in. Finally there are several thousand White Russian Cossacks, rated as unreliable as there arrival was somewhat uncertain!

The Allies don't have any significant artillery though. 

The shell crater with the cavalry indicates they are unreliable.

Baku is a port and Dunsterforce (and the Red Army) evacuated by sea so I got out my old home -made stern wheeler as some decoration. It was originally made to sail up the the river in Mesopotamia alongside General Townshends ill fated expedition.

The Islamic Crusade Army, on the left are two veteran Turkish units (indicted by the MGs) and on the right are a mass of Turkish cavalry trying to outflank the Allied line. The main Turkish army is rather hamstrung by poor communications through the mountains so their weight is on the Allied left.

In reserve are two units of Azerbeijani volunteers, both unreliable. I used my Arab Revolt figures for these as they look suitably raggedy. There is also a regular Turkish artillery unit. You can see the ground rising up behind the Turks, or possibly just a fold in the cloth. Ahem.

The action opened on both flanks with the Turkish cavalry trying to clear the hill and the Armenians taking on the Turkish infantry. The Turkish guns can support infantry combat but not cavalry actions, so it fired in support of the Turkish right.

The action on the right was inconclusive (despite the cavalry bonus for operating on the flank), but the Armenians routed the Turks! Their place was taken by Azerbeijanis.

The Armenians attacked on the left again and the Azerbeijanis just ran away. The Turkish guns fired a bombardment on the hill and combined with another cavalry charge, manged to clear it. 

More Azerbeijanis ran up to take the place of their fleeing comrades, while the Armenian reserves dug in at the base of the hill.

In a catastrophic turn for the Allies, the Turkish cavalry swept aside the Armenian reserves, and then attacked Dunsterforce in the flank, who also fell back in disorder! The joys of dice driven sector activation.... the Turkish cavalry had covered themselves in glory.

All that was left were the Cossacks who didn't fancy their chances against the elite Turkish infantry in the centre and instead blocked the Turkish cavalry.

You will notice that the Turkish cavalry has acquired a shell crater - if in a combat both sides are eliminated, the higher scorer isn't routed, but if they are cavalry, they become unreliable instead. What a clever idea, rather like the 'blown' result in Horse, Foot and Guns. Anyway, in the previous turn both the Armeians and Turks had destroyed each other, but the Turks had rolled higher, so got to remain albeit disordered. I'd missed that wrinkle in my previous games.

In the actual fighting the Armenians on the left managed to rout the Azerbaijanis while dodging the Turkish artillery.

The Turkish gunners suddenly found themselves in the front line!

The Turkish infantry in the centre finally stirred themselves and attacked the Cossacks, who turned out to be  steady and stood to receive the attack. Their unreliable marker was removed and the Turkish infantry repulsed. The Armenians on the left attacked the Turkish artillery lines ineffectively.

Next turn fighting resumed on the left and the Armenians overran the guns! Their headlong advance continued and the overran the Turkish centre!! Baku was saved, for now anyway.

That was really good fun, what a great scenario. I find something very appealing about the turn sequence in this iteration of Dominion, it produces a very effective game narrative. I just had to run it again.

Same setup as above.

This time there was extensive action on the left with both the Armenians and the Turks being routed (the former by an artillery bombardment). I've just realised I should have made the Armenians unreliable instead of routing them, oh well, too late now. 

Next round the Armenian reserves moved up to defend the left and routed the Azerbaijanis, but there was another mutual annihilation on the right with both sides removed as this time the dice were identical scores.

Time to throw in the kitchen sink. The Cossacks moved up on the right, while the Turks had to commit their artillery and last Azerbaijanis to the front. In hindsight I should have put the guns on the hill against the Cossacks.

The Cossacks and Azerbaijanis duly both ran away (!) and the Turkish gunners firing over open sights routed the Armenians. That just left Dunsterforce in the line with open flanks so a Turkish victory and the historical result as irl Dunsterforce was evacuated as Baku fell.

That was great, I really enjoyed both those games. Once again it has opened up a historical event about which I had vaguely heard but knew very little. I enjoyed researching the battle and setting up the terrain and forces, for me it really adds something although I know plenty of people are happy to play these with wooden blocks or whatever. I find the figures and terrain bring it to life, for me at any rate.

 Although the Dominion of Red and White are very simple, they really capture my impression of the period and they somehow feel richer than some of the earlier sets. I'm looking forward to doing more battles with these, although one thing I need to be careful of is jumping around between two many sets at once. There are quite subtle differences between all of them, but they make a very big difference to how they play. I think the artillery rules in these are just genius, particularly for such a simple set.