We played a second Back of Beyond battle with my Russian Civil War figures yesterday morning.
The action was fictional and although the uniforms are more 1919, the armies are probably more 1918. We used Setting the East Ablaze 2.0 rules with the following armies.
Reds
Comrade Pavlov +1 Leader
Red Army Communist Peasant Battalion 10 figs C3 M3 Rifles, Bombs and 1 LMG
Kulomzino Railway Worker Red Guards 10 figs C4 M3 Rifles, Bombs
Moscow Factory Worker Red Guards 10 figs C4 M3 Rifles, Bombs
Tobolsk Food Requisition Detachment 10 figs C4 M4 Rifles, Bombs
Magyar Internationalists 10 figs C3 M3 Rifles Bombs
Tashkent Cavalry Detachment C3 M3 Lances, Rifles, Bombs
Artillery Battery 2 x Field Gun C4 M3
1 HMG C3 M3
1 Austin AC C3 M3
Whites
Colonel Verzhbitsky +1 Leader
Omsk Officer detachment 10 figs C3 M3 Ferocious, Rifles, Bombs, 1 LMG
Irtysh Officer detachment 10 figs C3 M3 Ferocious, Rifles, Bombs, 1 LMG
Kurgan Officer detachment 10 figs C3 M3 Ferocious, Rifles, Bombs, 1 LMG
Ishim Officer detachment 10 figs C3 M3 Ferocious, Rifles, Bombs, 1 LMG
Orenburg Cossack Detachment 10 figs C2 M3 Lances, Rifles, Bombs
Artillery Battery 2 x Field Gun C3 M3
1 HMG C3 M3
1 Austin AC C3 M3
The Reds occupied the station complex with their railway workers and the ridge-line with the Food detachment, Peasant Battalion and Moscow Workers supported by their artillery and machinegun. The Magyars, Cavalry and Austin were held in reserve behind the line.
The whites were deployed opposite the ridge and station between two small groups of trees. Their artillery was hidden in the trees on their right. The Kurgan and Ishim detachments faced the station with the cossacks and the White Austin in support. The Irtysh detahcment and MG sheltered behind a small rise giving cover from the Red gun line and the Omsk detahcment formed the left of the White line.
The Whites' main attack went against the Station with the Cossacks and Armoured Car in the vanguard. Meawhile the remaining White forces pinned the Reds in place on the ridge. Realising they were weak on the station flank the Reds sent their cavalry and food detachment to assist.
On the left flank the Omsk detachment occupied the small wood and got into a firefight with the Red Austin. They were eventually forced to retreat but held up the Red Armoured car for the whole game.
The Red artillery blasted away ineffectually throughout the battle, even when under the personal direction of Comrade Pavlov. By contrasts the Whites hammered the ridgeline positions knocking out the Red MG and forcing the battered remnants of the Red Army Peasant battalion to retire from their redoubts.
The main fight however was on the station flank. The cossacks dashed forward to the station, dismounting and clashing steel with the Red food detahcment, who had rushed to the aid of their railway worker comrades. The Red Cavalry likewise dismounted and joined the fight for the station. The railway workers poured fire from the station master's Dacha in support but were charged by the Ishimsky detachment. The Kurgan officers charged forward to support the Cossacks in the station.
The food detchment, weakend by machingun fire, were no macth for the cossacks who killed them all, even massacring the last few who tried to surrender. With the Kurgan detachment in support they then overcame the dismounted red cavalry and ejected them from the station. The last fleeing reds shot from their horses as they fled for the saftey of the ridge.
Despite breaking the Ishim assault the railway workers morale collapsed as their friends died in front of them and with no way of excape they surrendered. The cossacks adding to their bloodthirsty reputation from the station once again massacred the prisoners.
Too late to be of much help Pavlov brought forward his Magyar internationalists but the position seemed lost and the Reds were looking over their shoulders for a line of retreat.
As the victorius Whites push west to liberate more of Siberia from the Bolshevik criminals, the telegraph lines to Moscow are hot with news of the terrible attrocities committed by the Cossacks.