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Thanks. The Simbas weren’t too bad. Just head swaps and paint mostly, with a few bits of easy green stuff sculpting. I’m no figure designer, sadly.
More here: https://thebitsbox.blogspot.com/2022/11/the-simbas.html
Hi Jozi,
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. 🙂
Here, finally, are the cards I did ages ago and didn’t get around to posting.
In PDF
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1F_6aG7gBmxBNBi-bnYvXQZajoa-TxsjJ
and SVG format.
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1wxyuGinOHiMXrGTttrx4HyWE82NW5Fc5
I made them using Inkscape
That sounds like defeatist thinking to me comrade.
My apologies commissar, I only meant we now have the advantage of interior lines. 😉
On rules, I think we’re coming at this from different sides as my miniatures are 28mm and on skimish basing. Also my concept was for a light character-based big skirmish approach rather than worrying too much about modelling the reality of the RCW. Flavour and fun over depth I suppose. So take the following in that light.
Square bashing and Return to the River Don I am aware of but haven’t read. Red Actions looks great but didn’t suit the style I imagined. Triumph of the Will had some nice concepts but I wasn’t keen on the core mechanic of unit size by quality, as it would give big elite units vs small rabble, which seemed wrong. Roger at the GaPa blog uses them and likes them IIRC.
https://gapagnw.blogspot.com/2016/03/russian-civil-war-game.html
Using TMWWBK was an idea I stole from Doc Pahalanx’ blog and the game report by Widow’s son on LAF. We’d used them for colonial games too.
https://doctorphalanx.blogspot.com/2020/09/russian-civil-war-in-28mm.html
https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=96251.msg1190153#msg1190153
Widow’s son kindly provided his unit cards and some other bits, which are great. We tried a few games with these and they were fun but the battles seemed to bog down into troops in buildings trading shots until one ran away. Maybe realistic but not so great for gameplay.
The first set we tried were Setting the East Ablaze. These are definitely in the boys’ own vein I imagined and the books are fantastic as resources. Plus Steve is a member on LAF, a good egg and very helpful/supportive. Sadly, much as wanted to like them, the rules themselves I was less keen on. They have lots of flavour and good things but I couldn’t get my head around some aspects. The unit morale and levels just jarred with me for some reason. Maybe the reverse numbering? I’m not sure why, and anyway some others bits weren’t to my taste either. e.g. the random unit card system for turn order I’ve never been a fan of as it leaves too many players out of the action. I think I’m probably just fussy, so maybe it’s me not the rules, it’s me. 🙂
Next we tried Fistful of Lead Bigger Battles. Thes are a great little set I really like. Definitely Hollywood over History and understandably generic with special rule tailoring but lots of fun and have a better card driven mechanic. We tried them a few times and had a blast but they start to struggle a bit if you use too many troops, which we always end up doing. You could tweak them, use bigger groups on a card, change the turn sequence a bit maybe but them you’re re-inventing the wheel. I’d use these again for small games but I wanted a set that would work for big games as we’d done so many figures by this point.
So now we’re at October Hammer. We played again last night. We didn’t use the train or cossacks in the end as one player couldn’t make it. So we ended up with four players and me as umpire but that quickly broke down into two games either side of the bridge objective and river line. The Whites using the Volunteer army list as a basis attacked and had a slight advantage in quality versus the Red Army’s slight advantage in numbers but most troops were using standard stats.
On the east bank the Whites maneuvred impressively to form a powerful attack that was horribly gunned down by maxim fire. Brutal! On the west bank the Whites advanced in better cover and with an armoured car in support and took out most of the Red Rifle units and MGs in the centre. Neither side really got any cavalry into action and the Armoured Cars seemed rather dominating but we made lots of mistakes so I’ve no idea if that’s a fair judgement. I like the mechanics generally although they’re taking a bit of getting used to. The shooting seems quite variable with units sometimes wiped away in very short order and at others clinging on for ages. Not very attritional or predictable. The order choices make a big difference and are seldom obvious making the gameplay fun but luck a heavy element. Some parts need a bit more defining I think. e.g. With artillery we were unsure if they could move and fire or withdraw/redeploy and at what rates and with what effects from terrain. Also, I think we might force shooting at the closest target as some of the ganging up seemed gamey. We used half speed in bad going instead of -2″ as it was more intuitive. We might tweak the stats a bit when we know the rules better to reflect unit quality and special RCW circumstances. e.g. RCW MGs were often short of ammo and either unreliable or badly manned, so universal -2 on the hit number is maybe too good. Although, several were knocked out in our game, so that might not be necessary. On ranges we used 24″ for rifles 36″ for MGs and 60″ for field guns as the maximum. We were playing on roughly 8’x6′ each side of the river, so it made sense. We also only used the leader casualites within 12″ but mostly forgot to roll anyway.
So, on balance a good fun game and we’ll keep going with OH for now. On a more general note, I liked the ideas and the rules are good value for what you get. So even if we don’t ultimately stick with these long term I’m glad I tried them out.
