RFCM

Thanks for the comments all. 

I'm liking the way you build up for an attack and then it can be all over very quickly, without much/any chance to intervene.  You can imagine the despair of the senior command as they watch powerless when a carefully coordinated attack goes horribly wrong.  Big attacks seem to risk a lot but have the potential for big rewards.  After the failed attack on the Manor that whole German flank was badly mauled and General von Mick opted to not throw away his remaining units in desperate follow ups. Alternatively, the Tommies on the right seemed done for after falling back from the village by the Crossroads but managed to stop the pursuit.  This lost the the Germans a broken unit of reserves and their 'winning the fight' markers, drastically transforming the situation.  Here Mick did risk another attack and it was successful but another failure could have been costly.

The orders mechanic is also interesting.  My immediate reaction on reading it was to think it would be better to allow the order type to be different each turn.  I actually rolled this as an event in the RCW game. However, in this game not having that option had interesting results.  The German attackers had fight bonuses but suffered badly from morale after set backs.  I chose the more defensive Morale bonuses for the BEF, which ensured they didn't break but I missed those extra fight dice in the counter attacks.  I suppose the higher command orders are meant to represent a plan or attitude, rather than a general roaming the battlefield on a white horse.

Quote from: Sean Clark on January 12, 2025, 10:00:31 AMHow interesting. Looking at the pictures, no one would know you'd played the game on a grid. And the larger open nature of the table really emphasises the look of the thing.

I liked the look of the game.  It was relatively simple to project the grid in your mind by looking at the gaps between the terrain.  Although, I've just noticed the Crossroads objective is in the adjacent row to the Dead Wood.  So, maybe not as simple as I thought.    Not that it made much difference to the game.

Quote from: martin goddard on January 12, 2025, 12:03:01 PMNo wonder the Germans lost the war when faced by swagger stick armed British officers (??)

As a card-carrying Bolshevik, my sympathies are with the boys from the Mersey and the Thames and the Tyne, rather than lieutenant George and the Trinity College Tiddlywinkers.  However, someone in the BEF had some stiff upper something on the day.  Spikey Germans certainly make the best targets. 

We played SB again this week.  Something a bit more orthodox this time, with my club mate Mick's nice 15mm early WWI armies.  We didn't have a 4' x 3' table or mat to hand, so we used a 6' x 4' board and just divided it up into squares (actually rectangles) as needed.



As the BEF commander, my troops seemed frighteningly thin on the ground.  I clung to a few isolated positions and awaited the onrushing Hunnic hordes.  Some impressive mad-minute defensive fire, and some dire German saves, helped in places but it was very desperate stuff.  The village by the crossroads changed hands three times. 



After the tally it was a definite slap in the face for the Kaiser, giving the Tommies a chance to fall back in good order.  It felt nicely 1914 with the beleaguered BEF batteries and battalions standing resolutely against massed German charges, but not always able to hold back the tide.   

More details and pictures here

The squares do make it very easy to modify the scale and table size.  6mm could look great and I see no problem with the rules.

Thanks for the comments, glad you liked it.  We have some other 28mm RCW armies, so will have to try those soon.

Quote from: Sean Clark on January 05, 2025, 12:04:12 PMSquarebashing works excellently for RCW actions.

I saw nice pics of the game day and other RCW games/armies here, which gave me the idea to try SB. 

Hello all,

We've tried the rules now and here is a quick RCW game report.  I know it's probably heresy, but we used 28mm figures as that's what we have.  The rules seem to work fine.  We used 12" squares and 10 figure groups.  For casualties, we took off a figure for each hit, disbanding the unit when it gets down to only 2 figures. i.e. still 8 hits in total.  Everything else was a single model or base, except the Higher command, which was a small group of command figures.





PS The armies were Early Reds and AFSR Whites.

Thanks both.  My prejudice expected to be able to defend all the objectives. 

Thanks Sean.  One to watch for.

Doh!  Buildings can be placed over roads and need a roll to exit.  It make sense now.

Next newbie question.  As I understand it, objective rows must add up to 13 and the crossroads one is compulsory.  In our game the crossroads was in row 2 and so the others were placed in rows 4, 4 and 3 to comply.  As the defender deploys in rows 2 and 3 (surprisingly not row 1) two of the objectives were forward of the defenders.  Worse, the attackers go first and can move two forward to take them straight away, unopposed.  Did we do that right?

While searching for an answer on this one, I've now read here that defenders often place an objective in row 6, as an throwaway loss and leaving only 7 points needed for the others.  This doesn't seem to be a problem, so I assume the defender's choice is to either fight aggressively over several objectives in the middle, or throw one away and defend further back. Is that how it typically goes?

Hello all,

Newbie question I'm afraid.  My understanding is that roads are extra to the 4 scenery choices, even though they are listed under the scenery types, and placed before the other scenery at step 7 of the game setup.  Also, that scenery cannot ever be placed over the roads, even if moved by the attacker. I assume that is all correct.

My confusion comes because the road type says "No roll needed for scenery exit on road face unless into square adjacent to enemy, or assaulting."  How can this ever occur if a road face can never be placed entering or exiting a scenery square?  Am I misunderstanding something or is this a typo?

Thanks

Thanks all 

Hi all,

Thanks for the responses and pointer to the article.  I probably don't understand the game side of things yet but I would say there is plenty of evidence for the use of armoured Trains, Cars and Tanks by the Reds in the RCW.  So I might want to add some for scenarios at least.

From my reading, the Reds used substantial numbers of Armoured Cars across virtually all fronts right from the beginning of the civil war.  They seized most of the operational Imperial vehicles as well as repairing or manufacturing many more across a variety of factories.  Keeping them operational was a challenge but they retained significant numbers throughout the war and captured others from the Whites.  These vehicles were mostly Austin variants but there were numerous other types, including some heavy truck-based Garford Putilovs with their 76mm guns. 

For tanks they had to acquire everything from the Whites or Interventionist forces.  Small numbers of FT-17s were captured from the French at Odessa and the Americans in the East, with a few more even manufactured from copied or captured parts.  However, the majority of Red Tanks were British built vehicles captured from the AFSR.  By mid 1920 the Reds were fielding small numbers of Captured Mark V and Whippet tanks against the Poles and later used some to mop up the last of the Whites in the south.

David Bullock's Osprey on the Red Armour in the RCW is easily available and has a lot of detail on the numbers used. 

Hi all,

I saw some pictures of your great RCW game day, so I fancied giving Square bashing a go for some RCW games.  I have the army book now, and the rules are in the post.  Flicking through the lists I see that the RCW Red Shock Army is missing the numbers for the Tanks and Light AC.  Is there an errata or can someone tell me what these value should be?


Thanks