Night raid at Stolinchnaya : RCW

Catching up again from a battle played a couple of weeks ago. This time a Russian Civil War encounter, I have found with these virtual games the addition of some slightly more complex objectives or scenario rules helps keep the enthusiasm. So I set this battle as a night raid, the Reds are seeking to break across the River at the small village of Stolinchnaya. The Whites have posted two units overnight the three potential crossing the river only being crossable at those designated points. The Reds do not know what forces or the quality of the forces on picket duty. The Reds will come on with designated tokens for each unit these will only be revealed, if they shoot or can be spotted. Spotting mechanism using a D6  under 6” automatic no body is that quiet !, under 9” a roll of 1 or 2 , up to  12” 1, 2 or 3 increasing at increments of 3” up to 21” where a 6 is needed. Simple but it seemed effective and worked. No units still in hiding can be shot at or assaulted. The overall objective for the reds is to get across the river an establish a legitimate legitimate Bridgehead. Initially we started with the idea of 6 or 7 turns but the slow cautious sneaky advance of the reds meant we extended to allow them to make best use of the cover they had from the darkness.

The two crossings and the pickets were randomly selected and as it happens the bridge in the centre was undefended !

The Reds advance, their commander has written down each unit on a piece paper (Old school !)

The White reserves are only allowed to come onto the battlefield when the first Red unit is spotted and the alarm raised, luckily this occurred turn two, the whites have brought a new weapon in the form of a Whippet Tank

The Whites advance at speed and include some Cossack cavalry

Oddly the first unit to be spotted in the Red Commander , but perhaps not surprising as he is carrying a great big red flag, other Red units have already made it under darkness to the bridge but still they have not been revealed

This means the whites have little idea where the push is going to come or which crossing is likely to be the focus of any assault

Finally an armoured car is revealed tracking along the river bank

On the right the Reds have finally decided to assault even though they don’t know what to expect over the river

Lucky for them it turns out to be a unit of local partisans , they do however catch the Reds in the river with a strong volley before being assaulted and driven off

In the centre the Reds are across the river still with out being spotted

......and are across the river and into the church yard on the left, not looking good for the whites

...however, the Reds on the right have been cut down by machine gun fire

And there is a chance the Cossacks might be able to clear the church yard

They charge in at full pelt driving the first unit away

But are then cut down themselves, the ‘white’ infantry charge in on the unit of Sailors

And after a hard struggle force them back in to the river..a glimmer of hope ?

But the whites have no answer to the armoured car which is hidden from the White artillery by the church until it is too late and onto the road

The only option is to try a speculative and highly dubious assault on the vehicle when this fails and the White Commander is killed the whites know the game is up and withdraw.

A victory to the reds, although we judged it only a minor victory as they had paid a very high price. As always a fun game. The night raid/spotting mechanism worked really well giving a different feel as the two side were very close together when the action kicked off. I am looking at getting some more RCW figures painted and have recently been adding shoulder boards to convert some Reds to Whites ! I also need more colourful banners and am working on these as well having finally found some decent flags on the internet.

One more game to catch up on....hope you are all keeping well :)