The Men Who Would Be Tsars

Here are a few pictures of some testing we did trying The Men Who Would Be Kings colonial rules by Dan Mersey for Russian Civil War / Back of Beyond games.

We played a couple of quick actions for a village somewhere in Estonian or Latvia.  My Reds are fighting against a fellow club mate's newly kitbashed Estonians.

The Estonians make a nice change for the Whites in their mix of German, Russian and British kit.  I think we could use them as Poles or Freikorps as well without too many complaints.

The first game saw the Reds burn a few houses but at a very heavy costs in men.  The bolos came back for revenge though in the second attack and kicked the Nationalists out liberating the ruins. 

I'm not sure really which photos were from which round, so the pics are just for show not a real after action report.

The TMWWBK rules worked pretty well.  The troop stats were pinched from one of the guys from the LAF Back of Beyond Forum.  Thanks Paul. 

The IGOUGO turn sequence plays faster than the more dyanmic card based systems we have used like Fistful of Lead: Bigger Battles or Setting the East Ablaze. 

They provided a more predictable and attritional game with lots of shooting to wear down and drive off the opposing units.  This arguably provided less Hollywood and more History but that's debateable.

We have played some very large Colonial games using these rules and I think they would work well for similarly megalomanic games in the Back of Beyond where card based turn activation can grind a bit.