The Bits Box: RCW

Showing posts with label RCW. Show all posts

Thursday, 30 July 2026

Counter-revolution in Samarkand, Part I

In the early hours of a February morning in 1918, a train of scruffy soldiers pulls into a Bolshevik controlled station outside the ancient city of Samarkand.

This is scenario one, The Mutineers Attack!, from the excellent Red Dawn Rises! supplement for Setting the east Ablaze! rules. It is certainly dramatic, judging by all the exclamations!

The scenarios in the book are great and inspired by Peter Hopkirk's equally excellent book on the Russian revolution in central Asia.

We used the third edition of the rules, by the only slightly less excellent Steve Langan, for this game.

This is what happened according to the official history.

The sleepy guards are not expecting trouble but the soldiers disembark fully armed and ready to fight.

"MUTINY!" The Mensheviks have turned their former allies against the revolution and they are now fighting for the Whites!

The small garrison of red guards run for the relative safety of the coal bunker.

"Fire on the traitors, comrades!"

The Bolshevik gunners spring to their work and shells begin to land with pinpoint precision.

Chaos reigns in the mutineer ranks. Their armoured car crashes off the ramp and immediately breaks down.

Some of them run and hide in the railway shed.

Others in the trees.

Captain Pernov pushes his men through a window into the hastily vacated station.

"More shells comrades. Keep firing…Oh!" The Bolo field gun runs low on ammo.

But all is not yet lost for the Reds, as their AA gun pours murderous fire into the station killing more of the mutineers.

What this defence needs is an inspiring and handsome proletarian hero.

Fortunately, as the Red guards regroup in the coal bunker, they are joined by commissar Totzek after he heroically sneaked out the back of the hotel. These dogged revolutionaries will be difficult to shift from behind those solid walls.

Wait! Stop! Where are you going? Seduced by more Menshevik lies the guardsmen defect.

It’s okay thinks Totzek to himself, "I will persuade the mutineers over to me, with my deep understanding of class consciousness and dialectical materialism". "Oh! That didn’t go well."

"It'll be okay. I’m sure nobody else heard me mess that up, and will therefore abandon me as a result. Oh!" The Red AA gun also defects to the Whites.

Time to run for it. [Ed: I don't have any pictures of the chase that followed, so you'll just have to imagine a cross between Dr Zhivago, Benny Hill, and the Keystone Cops, all to the soundtrack of Yakkerty Sax.]

Totzek makes it to the field gun and his last remaining comrades. Who, fortunately, seem to have found some more ammunition. Making every shell count they blast their former compatriots and send them running but Pernov rallies his men and begins the assault again.

The inept mutineers, driven on by Captain Pernov, struggle up the slope to storm the last Bolshevik redoubt but are thrown back by the stubborn defence. Totzek empties his pistol into their ranks, killing another mutineer.

However, the numbers are overwhelming and our scene fades to black as poignant music plays and a battle damaged red flag waves gently in the breeze …

... but what a twist! The body of the commissar cannot be found! ...

Saturday, 4 January 2025

Square Bashing the RCW

For our latest Back of Beyond game we tried the Square Bashing rules from Peter Pig using our Russian Civil War armies.

This is after the initial set up phase with movement beginning on the right as the Red Sailors advance. There is a quite involved set up where the type of battle is determined, the terrain and objectives are placed, and units can start off table. Also see Storm of Steel's review and game reports for more on how they work.

The Reds quickly crossed the open steppe into the woods around the villages seizing several objectives.

The Grand Manor was undefended but a White Officer battalion held the village beyond with Cossacks in support.

The Red sailors rushed forward bravely but came face to face with a British supplied tank!

The AFSR heavy guns proved much more effective than the Reds, The Red cavalry, caught in the open, suffered particularly badly.

With reinforcements arriving from the rear the Whites quickly organised a counter attack and re-captured the crossroads and surrounding village.

Bruised, but not yet broken, the Red sailors regrouped for another charge with their own armour in support.

On the left the Red Guards took the grassy knoll and then successfully defended it against an assault by Drozdovsky officers, with Cossacks and an AC in support. Their heroic stand was a pivotal moment of the battle.

Meanwhile, in the centre, the rest of the Bolshevik infantry had held out under intense artillery fire for several turns. Throwing back a desperate attack by the massed White infantry to secure the woodlands.

The Kronstadt boys’ second assault pushed the White tank out of the village and damaged it. This left them tantalizingly short of the Crossroads they had briefly held but netted them a useful 5 victory points at the end of the game.

Finally, on the right flank, the remnants of the Proletarian horse, with supporting field guns firing over open sights, managed to stand against a last ditch white cavalry charge.