Lead Adventure Forum
Miniatures Adventure => Back of Beyond => Topic started by: trev on May 25, 2021, 01:15:22 PM
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Now that lockdown is relaxed and we can actually play face to face we tried out Dan Mersey's The Men Who Would Be Kings for some RCW action. Thanks to Widows Son for the stats and cards.
(https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-E0sIb0raVk0/YKzbMFYnvqI/AAAAAAAABUM/7PrmdPQmy8kJV6-XQu3wqrBQgoUvv-1RwCPcBGAYYCw/s960/TMWWBKTest107.jpeg)
My Reds took on my club mate's Estonians, kitbashed from a mix of German, British and Russian plastic sprues.
(https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-7mBK8DaqOFE/YKzbLHpS8II/AAAAAAAABT0/g2B_d2Hcs3Mil3BC28__FEdRz-R-QTmJQCPcBGAYYCw/s960/TMWWBKTest103.jpeg)
(https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Pg2nhP-ve7A/YKzbLAfOXHI/AAAAAAAABT4/FqhZu_Ki6W8JbndOc_DOxLlIwXIjSZ12ACPcBGAYYCw/s960/TMWWBKTest101.jpeg)
(https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pKvHtcaeJnk/YKzbLLWuoCI/AAAAAAAABT8/lJ3_oxKujsAfvdJbLWxt38GqVxBJOR0WACPcBGAYYCw/s960/TMWWBKTest102.jpeg)
We played two short sharp fights for a village somewhere in Estonia. The games were fast and fun, giving a more attritional fight than FFOL or StEA. There was lots of shooting to drive back the opposition. The first Red attack was repulsed with heavy losses but the second carried the burning remains of the village.
(https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1XY6JxZDg9c/YKzbLjJgpyI/AAAAAAAABUA/bnGNHr02R-cltWpwmYnc8NWg2pz4GYxMwCPcBGAYYCw/s960/TMWWBKTest104.jpeg)
(https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vMZzYlvdhhk/YKzbLvH3t8I/AAAAAAAABUI/itZp5umlyh4OVcUQupHRdMg0iKxNyTsRQCPcBGAYYCw/s960/TMWWBKTest106.jpeg)
We have used these rules for some very large colonial games and I think they would work well for such large games in the Back of Beyond too.
(https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-qPP-hLIZHkI/YKzbLpJmpZI/AAAAAAAABUE/_mipvyYejokvU0PqOoX1JIxzzzRnNONJACPcBGAYYCw/s960/TMWWBKTest105.jpeg)
(https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-OuH0jgM7BbU/YKzbMmvX6YI/AAAAAAAABUc/oRthXx4ZCgck2b4qHYaRvlypONOA6QUOACPcBGAYYCw/s960/TMWWBKTest111.jpeg)
See a bit more here (http://'https://thebitsbox.blogspot.com/2021/05/the-men-who-would-be-tasrs.html')on my blog
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Trev, very nice. I’m intrigued by the use of TMWWBKs. I started a thread yesterday asking for Back of Beyond rules recommendations and didn’t consider these. Having just bought them for 19th century Colonial I am more than a little interested. Two questions if I may;
Where can I find the rule mods/data sets?
Do you know of any books on the post WW1 conflict in the Baltic’s. I saw an exhibition on the period in the Brussels Military Museum back in 2018, and bought an Osprey on the topic.
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Nice report and nice to see this period being payed using the rules.
Who made your buildings??
SJWi - the rules are pretty period agnostic and although they are meant for colonial action they can cover a much wider range of 19th and early 20thC campaigns, providing those playing are prepared to do a little research into a particular campaign and tweak the rules a little. Like Rebels and Patriots they are an excellent framework and well worth a look.
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Thanks for the AAR and photos - great stuff.
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Hi SJWi,
As the Emir says the rules are pretty fine as they are. You can easily take the regular and irregular unit types and adapt them to be White Officers, Red Guards or Anarchist Partisans using the unit options.
e.g. agressive assault units like sailors might be Fierce regulars, units with many light machineguns could be sharpshooters, Red Guards might be well armed Irregulars and pressed conscripts might be unenthusiastic. You will probably quickly get to more than 24pt force though as many units will be expensive in points. There are no rules for vehicles, so you might want to add those but many battles didn't include any.
see also Widows Son's thread here with some great unit cards
https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=96251.msg1190153#msg1190153 (https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=96251.msg1190153#msg1190153)
I'm not really an expert on the baltic wars. I just have general histories, the Osprey and this book on the naval campaign.
https://ospreypublishing.com/store/military-history/series-books/elite/armies-of-the-baltic-independence-wars-1918-20 (https://ospreypublishing.com/store/military-history/series-books/elite/armies-of-the-baltic-independence-wars-1918-20)
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1662923.Freeing_the_Baltic (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1662923.Freeing_the_Baltic)
Mark's ever useful Pygmy Wars site has some good detail on Latvia in 1919.
http://pygmy-wars.50megs.com/pygmywars.com/history/latvia/latviaintro.html (http://pygmy-wars.50megs.com/pygmywars.com/history/latvia/latviaintro.html)
Plus take a look at the OOB data here
http://pygmy-wars.50megs.com/pygmywars.com/military/toes/toesintro.html (http://pygmy-wars.50megs.com/pygmywars.com/military/toes/toesintro.html)
and Red Action Army lists, which have great notes and can be easily converted to other game systems to give a historically reasonable build for a TMWWBK field force
http://pygmy-wars.50megs.com/pygmywars.com/gaming/lists/armylists.html (http://pygmy-wars.50megs.com/pygmywars.com/gaming/lists/armylists.html)
These youtube videos give an easy overview with some nice pictures and maps
Estonia and Latvia Fight For Independence - Russian Civil War Baltic Front I THE GREAT WAR June 1919
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUO8XmTr46g (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUO8XmTr46g)
The Freikorps Fights On - Estonia and Latvia War For Independence I THE GREAT WAR 1919
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpsDx4rAEow (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpsDx4rAEow)
Baltic Naval War 1919 - Fire & Ice (but mostly ice, lots of ice)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhFlYw6lUsA (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhFlYw6lUsA)
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Nice report and nice to see this period being payed using the rules.
Who made your buildings??
Thanks for the kind comments folks. The buildings were made from card, filler, miliput and wooden dowel rods if my memory serves me well. We did them for a Baltic Crusades game at Salute or SELWG years ago.
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Trev, great stuff. I'm already on the look-out for the book on the Baltic. My mate has bought FFoL "Bigger Battles" and several of us already have TMWWBKs, so sounds like we are sorted for now. A fall-back will be to buy "Setting the East Ablaze" v2 .
I'm now inspired to paint the Empress "German 1918 civil war" figures plus 1st Corps Erhardt armoured car that I have in the metal and resin mountain.
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Trev, great stuff. I'm already on the look-out for the book on the Baltic. My mate has bought FFoL "Bigger Battles" and several of us already have TMWWBKs, so sounds like we are sorted for now. A fall-back will be to buy "Setting the East Ablaze" v2 .
We’ve played all three and had fun, so you should be fine.
I'm now inspired to paint the Empress "German 1918 civil war" figures plus 1st Corps Erhardt armoured car that I have in the metal and resin mountain.
The empress figures are smaller than the Copplestone BoB figures but very nice sculpts. I have a 1st Corps Austin and that is good too. Please post pictures when they’re done. :D
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Trev, You may be waiting some time. Currently finishing a Sharpe Practice Indian Mutiny British force, and an Infamy Imperial Roman detachment is patiently waiting to go onto the painting table. After that I have some decisions to make.
Thanks again for the inspiration.
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Great looking game. :-*
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Trev, great looking game, well done.
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We are currently using a set called the man who would be warlord.
You can see our campaign in the Interwar forum, under the heading ACW II 1933 Sacramento campaign.
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Do you know of any books on the post WW1 conflict in the Baltic’s. I saw an exhibition on the period in the Brussels Military Museum back in 2018, and bought an Osprey on the topic.
Months later and not who you were addressing, but I would recommend 'Splintered Empires' by Prit Buttar, it's the 4th book in his series on the Eastern Front of the Great War so it slightly assumes you've read the previous three, but not enough to be unreadable on its own, but it has some quite long chapters on the 'Pygmy Wars' in the Baltic. I'm currently reading 'The Vanquished' by Robert Gerwarth, which is an interesting book and one you'll probably come across with any searching for books on the post 1917 wars, I can report his discussion of the fighting in the Baltic is thin though. Two others that are on my shelf to read that are also about the topic (albeit possibly more British intervention focused than you'd be looking for, I've not read them yet so cannot say either way), are 'Freeing the Baltic' by Geoffrey Bennett & 'Churchill's Secret War with Lenin' by Damien Wright. Hope this helps
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There's nothing in English that covers the wars. It would be a mammoth task, since someone writing an authoritative history would need to read Russian, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, German and Polish. (Despite their close proximity, the only two there linguistically related are Polish and Russian.)
I dug everything I could for the Latvian part in Pygymy Wars, but only got that much because an Estonian history graduate helped me.
There's no coherence to the topic anyway, with too many combatants all fighting each other. I reckon about 10 different "wars" without having to sort out the weirdness of Bermondt-Avaloff and Bulak-Bulakhavich (again!).
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Late to the show Trev but a really nice looking game! Churchill's Secret War With Lenin does cover Estonia to some extent but probably does not have the detail that you are looking for.
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I found these very simple adaptions. I regret I didn't note the name of the author. I'm not adopting the following exactly but it's going to he the main basis of my approach:
""Russian Civil War. All infantry and cavalry classed as irregular. Tanks/armoured cars classed as crewed weapons in hard cover, but limited to a maximum of 3 crew. Tanks move at infantry speed and can move through obstacles/barbed wire , armoured cars at regular cavalry speed. Commissars are attached to infantry and cavalry units. A unit with a commissar can increase discipline roll by +1 at any time (before dice are rolled) but at the cost of one figure from the unit (to encourage the others!)."
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Good luck Doc and please do update us on your project.
One point. I'm not sure the idea of commissars shooting people as motivation is really authentic for the civil war. The Bolos didn't have that level of authority that early. I think they are better presented as enthusiastic, energetic or charismatic leaders, often without too much military skill.
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historically Trev you are quite right but sometimes the propaganda makes for a more fun game??????
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Hi Folks,
For anyone wanting to easily emulate this, looking at the thread, I suspect this variation arose from a WW1 adaption from Wargames Illustrated a while back.
Link here:
https://www.wargamesillustrated.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Foch-The-Men-Who-Would-Be-Kings-English.pdf
I mused about using the WW1 rules and vehicles etc for the Rif War maybe sometime, so kept them in the back of mind as a maybe useful oneday...
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cracking game and good discussion on rules and sources. Thanks chaps
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Trev, I understand Commissars were also thin on the ground.
I considered Foch but it had more in it than I needed. The key idea is treating vehicles as crew-served weapons.
I also intend to use TMWWBK for the Irish War of Independence so am working on definitions for Crossley Tenders, armoured trucks and shotgun groups.
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er, shouldn't that be The Men Who Would Be Heroic Proletarian Champions of the Great Workers' Collectivist Struggle Against Imperialist Exploitation? Seems more catchy.
Anyway, we too recently used MWWBK to play a RCW/Back of Beyond game (will supply a few pics when I remember how to do it) and found the rules easily adaptable to the period, even with an armoured train. We used the rules not because they are particularly period appropriate, because they aren't, but because everybody sort of knows them.
Where we found they aren't so great is in battles involving large numbers of units - at least a dozen on each side - principally because all the different leaders' abilities are so hard to remember! Others may have fared better on this but it was just after Christmas and brains were a little cloudy.
I think you have to be a little open-minded on unit type definitions, otherwise you can end up with every unit the same, ie not terribly good. So we had officers' regts, ChON, and naval infantry as Regular (the first both fierce and elite, second elite and third fierce), and Cossacks as Regular lancers (because they would surely be fierce if Regular cavalry were allowed to be). Other infantry tended to be irregular, Bolshevik cavalry was regular but no upgrades.
We should have made the train tougher as, with everyone pouring fire into it, including infantry with grenades, it didn't last as long as it should.
We treated AFVs as crew-served weapons and they proved particularly uninspiring, tho they had some dreadful leaders. One never got his vehicle started for the entire battle.
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Nice pictures!
Given the period "The Men Who Would be Atamans" perhaps?
I wouldn't feel too bad about the train struggling -- if a train did allow infantry to within grenade range, it was in major difficulty. They would usually have bugged out long before it got to that, because if some men get behind it and tore up the track, it is in big trouble. Perhaps increasing the number of MGs on them, so that enemy can't close in like that would help.
It's a vexed question how to deal with armour -- cars as well as trains. They were both very powerful, and could easily turn a battle, and hugely vulnerable. My reading is that the crews of both tended to play it very safe, and retire unless things were going swimmingly, rather than take a risk and have one lucky artillery shell lead to them being immobilised and captured.
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thanks, yes, or maybe the Men Who Would Be Atamen.
I actually wanted to use your fine adaptation of Red Actions! but the others complained about learning new rules. Pathetic.
Wasn't my idea to allow grenades to damage a train - I wonder whether they would have done. Didn't want to make the train too powerful but in retrospect it wasn't powerful enough. We only allowed two guns and two MGs and each car was armour class 4.
As for The armoured cars, I agree - they have to be pretty vulnerable to breaking down. (After reading Peter Fleming's description of the astonishing and endless sand and dust storms in News from Tartary, I'd be surprised that any gun fired let alone vehicle worked out there!)
The scenario didn't allow for the train to retreat - it had to get past a track blockage and get through. No doubt, way too many cars and tanks on the field for authenticity but they all looked too wonderful in those days to waste.
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Forcing a passage is a good scenario for an armoured train. I was just reading about some doing it against the Poles recently, with mixed success.
I have an interesting story in a book I'm putting up soon on Pygmy Wars about two armoured cars repelling a Red attack. The guns kept jamming, the cars kept breaking down and the crew had to be plied with alcohol to agree to enter combat in the first place. But while in operation, despite that, they did hold off an attack.
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Interesting tale. Wonder how much alcohol played a role in the war.
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Not much, because as Cuprum points out its production was banned long previously.
But when troops did stumble across alcohol supplies, the normal reaction was to drink it all, even to the point of passing out.
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Reminds me of the WWII stories of Russian troops being issued gas mask kits, which included some denatured alcohol for cleaning the kit. The men frequently used the charcoal filters from the gas masks to filter the alcohol to make it drinkable again... and down the hatch. lol
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The role of alcohol in the Russian Civil War was enormous. At least - for the Bolsheviks. The only significant source of fuel for Russia was Baku oil. And Soviet Russia was cut off from these reserves for a long time. On the territory of the Soviet republic, fuel supplies were small and were quickly exhausted.
So the main fuel on which the red planes, armored cars, cars and so on moved was alcohol and various mixtures based on it. I know the case when the red aviation squadron received several barrels of perennial cognac alcohol as fuel)))
During the Second World War, a Soviet soldier was given 100 grams of vodka (or equivalent wine) daily.
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Re; using TMWWBK for Inter-War gaming we are moving to a modified version of it for our Great Antipodean Adventure. We referred to Foch when updating the rules for ourselves. For vehicles we are using the portion of the A World Aflame Rules that covers them for that, they include a lot of good stuff especially a rule where vehicles must pass a test before closing on obstacles, fortifications, buildings etc which really helps stopping them becoming omnipotent!
Our QRS (well Rules really)...
(https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgYVuZIKuZCJqSYUqwajgkDITdbHoaX6T-amsQXOt6EwH8B5KZpGuyR7Li_8GK_IhNW6-W1DIv64xIvWHKUAdvuRG58JBQOugFglvxtLPSdxykVBuwNPhc_LcA9Z_JvLGItZOVH6DnxQpfCDcH-J7I9DKiZxxcnPmBVl2-FHvdverSsJl3glPts9zE9=s1083)
(https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj6SSAXlTQ2Nb-OCntDBI9Vi4mD1agzUokwZ4TYMXFRHXTwfohVBV_o7RrATM_IHCn0Wmd-DkPUmYhmkpMb8QsS83Ko30EguMlNpooqiziCrT73iJKRb4yuSvtTuJIVu6mozNiXoM6Ias2m4h7syHFbnnFi2Nz2Ihwa5urxt2kdfXEPWs31M822N6oQ=s1076)
Our changes are on the blog post below (less the vehicle obstacle test we add on the last play test)...
https://toysoldiersforoldgits.blogspot.com/2022/01/the-great-antipodean-adventure-very.html (https://toysoldiersforoldgits.blogspot.com/2022/01/the-great-antipodean-adventure-very.html)
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We called ours the men would be be Warlord. See attached. Feel free to copy, modify, disseminate or ignore.