The Men Who Would Be Tsars

[trev]

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.



My Reds took on my club mate's Estonians, kitbashed from a mix of German, British and Russian plastic sprues.







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.





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.





See a bit more here on my blog

[SJWi]

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.

[Emir of Askaristan]

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.

[Mike Blake]

Thanks for the AAR and photos - great stuff.

[trev]

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

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://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

Plus take a look at the OOB data here
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

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

The Freikorps Fights On - Estonia and Latvia War For Independence I THE GREAT WAR 1919
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

[trev]

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. 

[SJWi]

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. 

[trev]

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. 

[SJWi]

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.

 

[Mad Lord Snapcase]

Great looking game.   

[flatpack]

Trev, great looking game, well done.

[leadfool]

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. 

[Wookington]

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

[Mark Plant]

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!).

[marianas_gamer]

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.