11:11 AM
Test of Red Actions Revisions
We have been working pretty hard on revising RED ACTIONS to make it a faster and more playable game experience for convention gamers. Dave and Bruce Markley, John Koprowski, and I met at Dave's house three weeks ago to come up with some ideas on how to streamline and improve RED ACTIONS so that it plays in a more rapid fashion, with less questions about the rules cropping up, and somehow addresses the problem of "indestructible companies" that can remove terror markers and jump right back into the fray.
Our approach was thus:
1) We routinely game with full strength companies (six stands). We have dropped this down to five stand companies (uniformly) and less for elite companies like Naval, Chekist, etc.
2) We adjusted the Combat Results Table published in the original rules, essentially creating a new column for extremely low odds, shifting results one to the left across the table, and adding another "lose stand" result.
3) We also thought about tinkering with the morale rules and how terror markers get removed. We decided that to cange the CRT *AND* change the morale rules might be sheer overkill and lead to rapid decimation of both sides. Instead,we are going to conduct two test battles, one with changed morale rules (making it harder to remove terror and rally broken troops) and one with a more lethal table. This session that started last night was the lethal CRT session.
On the map, you can see the general layout of the battlefield. I do NOT have this OOB firmly in my head yet, this is just a general idea of what is where. Dave has the Red Army on the right, I have it on the left. John is commanding a mixed army of Poles (light blue) with a small contingent of Americans (green). Most of the Red Army is of the Regular or Miltia type. Both wings of the Red army have some elite troops-- Chekists for me (white) and Naval for John (also white). Overall commander positions at start are noted by a white #1 flag. Artillery pieces are placed as shown. Support weapons (mortars and MGs) are noted by the special "gun" symbol.
My Forces (the left wing of the Reds)
Col. Aksakov, +1, presiding over the battlefield from a small woody hill
Capt. Dubknow, +1, leading a platoon of Regular Red Army Types.
Capt. Ivanevko (0) leading some sad sack Militia in the Center.
The Hetman Meladze (+1) leading some regular Red Cavalry on the road
Major Proniakin (+2) is an inspiration of an officer, leading elite Chekists.
Finally,
Lt. Yuzyk leads some Red Regular Infantry with a rather disappoint (0) bonus.
In general, I'm pleased with the leadership (no negatives, and one plus two!).
Due to the lateness of the hour we set up and could only play one true turn through. Our setup was 9 inches closer to each other on both sides. This proved to be a big difference. No longer were we spending two turns of trudging. I moved direclty into conflict and was under fire from turn one. We put John's unit in the center to flight, had my conscripts move up to the farm houses in the center and fall back, have my regs lose a platoon form mortar fire and have to run backwards. We caused terror markers galore and even destroyed the Polish gun the first time we shot at it.
It's just a start, but in the short time we played we seemed to be faster and accomplish quite a bit towards our objectives. I think it is a hopeful step in the right direction. More here as we play it through.
2:51 PM
Tsaritsyn: an AAR of Red Actions
At my request, Peter Bogdasarian has punched up his AAR of Red Actions, which he gave me permission to repost here (primarily for my gaming group).(Mister Nizz) asked if I could do an AAR for the Red Actions game, so I slapped one together...
Tsaritsyn After Action Report
As envisioned by the game master, our game represented an engagement from the fighting in 1919 around the outskirts of the city. A rail embankment capable of giving cover ran across the board and there were two clumps of woods along the bank of the Volga river. The Reds possessed a large hill and a clump of buildings at their end of the board and had supplemented these with some crude field works.
The Whites fielded 2 battalions of Cossack cavalry, a battalion of Plastoon infantry, three 76.2mm field guns, a Tachanka, some machinegun & mortar detachments and a reserve of Plastoon infantry and Cadets.
The Reds opposed us with a large force of conscript infantry, mortars & machineguns, a field gun and a 105mm howitzer. Over the course of the scenario, they would be reinforced by a significant amount of cavalry and an armored train.
The White Reserve could not advance until it received fire or the main advance neared the rail embankment and so it was placed on the far left in the hope that it would draw fire. The main infantry component of the White force went next to it and then the two Cossack battalions. Getting around the woods to the White front would create something of a traffic jam, so the infantry deployed in columns rather than lines to minimize frontage.
The scenario gave the Reds the first activation each turn (something of a mistake in my opinion) and they began by aiming their first shot right at the White reserves! Yes, the very first shell released them from their restrictions. The Communist artillery also fired at our field guns, but we’d emplaced them in cover and the crews refused to retire. Indeed, they placed a hot fire on the hated foe and blew the foe’s 76.2mm gun apart with a well-aimed shot.
The Reds armored train appeared right at the start of the second turn and it came on shooting, though it managed little effect for its pains. The White artillery continued its rampage on the second turn, knocking out the Red howitzer and damaging the gun car at the front of the train. The train parked itself in the center of the Red line, allowing the Reds to shorten their lines to defend its flanks.
Over the next few turns, the Whites advanced while their artillery pounded down the mortars and machineguns opposite the left flank. By turn 5, they’d managed to shoot the gun car on the train to pieces, silencing its field piece. Attempts to suppress the Red infantry holding down the embankment with small arms ended when we discovered they were partisans and received two shifts on the fire table, making them essentially invulnerable to long range fire.
In the end, two attacks were put in on the Red line. One on the left, using combined arms, and another with all cavalry delivered to the Red right. The latter attack was fairly impetuous and disintegrated in a wall of superbly aimed rifle and machinegun fire. (two or three attack rolls of 10+ in a row) The Reds had positioned themselves well here, detailing a company to the woods to create a crossfire before their positions.
The other White push went rather better and would have been decisive if the pursuit rules had been used properly. (we wondered why cavalry against infantry seemed so light in penalty) Counterattacks by the Red cavalry were rebuffed and the Red infantry abandoned the rail embankment to make a new stand at the village line.
We ran out of time at this point, having played about 10 turns in 6 hours. The Whites were certainly breaking through on the left, though infantry had been drawn off to stiffen the other flank. Given another two or three hours, I think the main attack could have broken through – the Reds simply lacked the firepower to hold it back once the machineguns and mortars reached the front lines.
Overall, I enjoyed the scenario. The balance felt a little dicey – if the Reds had gotten the good artillery rolls and knocked out the White guns, they could have shelled us for the entire length of the board, which would have been awful frustrating – but that didn’t happen here and so I can’t complain about it. The long time it took the Whites to move down the board meant that the final clashes at the end possessed great significance, which kept players in the game – also, everyone had enough force assigned to them to survive the initial casualties and stay interested in the game.
Pics:
Set up for the Whites, set up for the Reds, the armored train, and finally, the White Counterattack in the center.
Thank you once again, Peter, for sharing your experience with your fellow RCW geeks!
1:24 PM
Red Actions AAR (& Red Storm)
The following post is from Peter Bogdasarian, who recently attended ORIGINS and managed to play in a game of RED ACTIONS at (it looks like) 15mm scale-- and posted this rather nice AAR on his CSW blog. I post this because at least 4 of the regular readers here have some investment in the RED ACTIONS combat system (we are working feverishly on making a faster version of it for convention play) and may wish to look at RED STORM as well. The material and observations are entirely the work of Peter Bogdasarian and I am reposting it for my colleagues who are not on CSW.
A Tale of Two Combat Systems
By Peter Bogdasarian, reporting from Origins 2007 (posted with Permission)
By an accident of scheduling, I ended up playing two Russian Civil War miniatures games on Thursday. A battle from the fighting around Tsaritsyn, using the Red Actions system from the Perfect Captain and a Generic Meeting Engagement from Somewhere in Russia using the Red Storm on the Horizon (hereinafter Red Storm) rules, which will be coming out from Battlefield Hobbies this year (or so I am assured). CSW's Roy Bartoo played in the second game, so someone can always corner him if they want a different viewpoint.
Both games use groupings of stands for infantry and individual vehicles/guns/etc. for the other stuff. Red Actions used companies as the basic unit of maneuver, Red Storm used formations of Indeterminate Size (though they looked a lot like companies).
Combat systems are the order of the day here so that's what I'll be focusing on, but as a brief introduction to the systems, Red Actions uses alternating activations, while Red Storm lets players "program" orders, then there is simultaneous movement & fire.
There is no command system in Red Actions - everyone does whatever you tell them to do.
For Red Storm, a side possesses a limited number of orders - each order allows one unit to activate. Activation is not guaranteed - players issue all their orders (move/fire/move&fire/charge/etc.) and then roll for acceptance. The more difficult the order, the more likely a unit is to reject it. Failing an order causes a unit to accumulate disruption points, which reduce its effectiveness.
Red Actions uses a Squad Leader style CRT for "conventional fire." (sum up firepower factors, find column, shift like hell) The neat thing here is that combat can cause units to accumulate terror markers (as well as conventional losses & retreats) - each terror marker reduces the formation's effectiveness as if it had lost a stand, but terror markers can be rallied off to return the force to full strength. Too many terror markers and you rout. An interesting way to do morale based combat while keeping the number of morale checks down.
The only flaw with the terror markers is that they can instantly be removed by spending the unit's turn to rally - there is no check required. Since the turn sequence in our game was fixed (and the Reds moved first, with alternating impulses), this gave the Reds a large advantage since they could easily rally units back to full strength before they could be engaged again in the next turn. I told the GM he really needed an initiative system and I think he'll give it a try next time.
The combat system in RA is very shift heavy - skirmishers (which includes the entire Cossack army), cover, partisans, etc. can all shift against the attacker and many times we couldn't fire at all thanks to these. When we could shoot, virtually all of the fire in our game took place on the weakest (3-6) column - where there is actually a fairly large chance of inflicting a result. (7+ on 2d6 against troops in the open, 9+ against troops in cover) The higher fire columns are much worse - units in RA cannot really stand up to fire for very long.
Direct fire in RA is rather different. 2d6 - ordinarily for a 10+ - and if you hit, the target loses a platoon (for infantry) or is destroyed (for artillery/crew served weapons). Armored trains can take a couple hits. There are no modifiers...
Which leads to my next point: Counterbattery is extremely dicey but decisively effective. Over the first two turns, we knocked out both of the Red artillery pieces (ironically, they shot first but rolled lower) with our three field guns. Then we knocked out their machineguns, mortars and (eventually) the Armored Train itself. With no modifiers for cover/etc., the only way the Reds could keep something alive was to keep it out of sight of the White artillery...
Red Storm uses a much more conventional combat system - buckets of dice and loss focused. Units accumulate hits and two hits kills an infantry stand. It is a much bloodier game than Red Actions and very likely crappier history, but much more fun. Fire combat can also place disruption points on a unit, impairing its overall effectiveness.
Guns, tanks, etc. use the same combat system as everything else but take varying amounts of hits to kill. (also, certain weapon systems simply cannot inflict hits on tanks) Counterbattery against enemy artillery is fairly difficult and nowhere near as easy as it is in Red Actions.
Given a choice between the two, I'd go for Red Storm. It is a bit more abstract than RA, but the system is swifter (we played 10 turns in both systems - it took three hours for Red Storm and six for Red Actions) and frankly more fun. I got very tired of watching us roll on the weakest column of the fire chart in Red Actions for turn after turn.
Pics:
Red Actions - a shot of the table before final set up. The Reds will end up putting a line behind the railroad embankment while the Whites deploy their infantry on the left and the cavalry on the right.
Red Storm - a shot of the entire table in the middle of the game.
Red Storm 2 - a shot of my position in the mid game. Roy Bartoo has managed to break his tank down near my infantry. An entire White company has been gunned down across from my troops and the naval infantry behind them are thinning fast. The Cossacks will end up carrying away much of my center in the next few turns.
The poker chips you see here indicate orders and the die placed on them shows the actual order. (1 = move, 2 = fire, 4 = move/fire, 5 = melee) The order # is also the difficulty number, as rolled on a ten-sided die.
AAR Ends. Thank you, Peter!
2:26 PM
Red Actions! Interventionist Scenario,
Setup and Turns 1-3
Last night we converged on La Casa Markley to setup a new RED ACTIONS! scenario, a rather speculative one based upon Red Russians and Poles versus Interventionist French and Americans. It made no sense historically, but it certainly was fun to play. Alas, with all the setup (and emergency mounting of my new Chekha units), we were late getting started, and could only play until 10PM. We made some progress. This is not a proper battle report, as we didn't get more than somewhere into turn 3 or so. On the other hand, we did test extensively the new revisions to RED ACTIONS! that (mostly) the Markley brothers have been working on. We managed to implment Leaders, Mob Rules, and refined elements of the combat sequence. When we finish up in two weeks or so, I will post a proper battle report.Initial Setup:
Looking South towards the Alliance (Reds and Poles)
(Americans, left. French right and in Trench lines. Militia in farmhouses up forward, left and right)
The Red Russians (my command). 2 units, conscripts. 1 unit, Regulars. 1 unit, Chekhists, 1 Gun, 1 MG, 2 units Cav (one Cossack, one Konarmiya). I gave the Konarmiya to John to balance out the turn better.
The Poles arrive. A mix of Conscripts, 1 Cav to start, 1 Gun, 1 MG, 1 Haller unit.
The French await the Poles and Russians in their trenches, beyond barbed wire. The conscripts in the farm houses are merely speed bumps to break up the attack of the Reds and Poles.
We didn't get far enough to report on much. We shelled the conscripts in the forward positions, somewhat ineffectively, thought we did manage to put on a few TERROR markers. They shot long range with an Infantry gun and Artillery pieces. My Chekists retired back into the woods, then streamed out and let out a devastating stream of gunfire on the conscripts in the farm houses. That extra firepower modifier comes in handy when you have six stands at start (one of the few times I've rolled on the 25+ table!). The conscripts lost a platoon. Then a cavalry close in infantry attack caused the to fall back, then fall back again. On the right, I was a bit crowded with the Reds so I advanced the Regulars up the right to try to flank the Conscripts in the blue jackets. They took such a hit from cannon fire and long ranged potshots that they retired away from me pretty onstantly. I moved my conscripts up, using the new MOB movement rules. They shot at stuff, not very well. The Chekists hardly had to do much but form a large fire group in the woods and blaze away (that's the closest thing to elite I have!). The Cossacks positioned themselves for a charge on the blue-coated conscripts (on the right) and caused them to retire in the face of fire. And that's about where it was by turn 3, where we had to put it on hold for the night. More on this battle when it gets completed, but for now I will leave you with this slideshow.
 | Cool Slideshows |
By the end of the evening... the conscripts had been pushed back dramatically without grevious losses, and were falling back on the American position on the Russian right, while the other conscript back was hanging out in the air after being charged by cavalary and shot up.
A most satisfying evening, I look forward to completing this one.12:21 PM
Replay, Russo-Polish War Project, Four Man Battle Part One
As I've mentioned on this blog before, I'm working on building up a revolutionary Red army for RCW and Russo-Polish War games. We are using 20mm soldiers, mostly plastics but some IT figures and FAA as well. My friend John Kuprowski is working diligently on building up a Polish army from this period and the Markley brothers (David and Bruce) have been cajoled into building some Interventionist forces, so that will probably be the next phase of this project.
Last time John and I tried RED ACTIONS, we ended up a tad confused but we definitely found it playable. We decided to give RA another try with a slightly more realistic terrain set and four players. The resulting battle was chaotic, hugely diverting and tons of fun. Red Actions is definitely beginning to grow on me.
I forgot to pick up AA batteries for my camera, so had to resort taking these pictures with my dinky 1.3 megapixel camera on my Palm Pilot. They are not the greatest. I have adjusted the color somewhat and brightened them here and there, but also will include this handy map and key so the amorphous blobs in the pictures make a little more sense.
Map
I see that Blogger has cut the right side of that map image off a bit, so you can click on this thumbnail to see the big kahuna.
To Conserve space and bandwidth, I've put the disposition of the forces pictures in slideshows. Someone commented that this reminds them of Ken Burns' Civil War, so hum along to the tune of Ashokan Farewell when you view these, if it makes you feel good.
The Red Army side, run by Walt on the left and Bruce on the right:
4:37 PM
My Russian Civil War project is coming along
Check out my armed Checkists. Not 100% accurate but pretty close to what I want!
The Chekists were the sinister precursor to the NKVD, which was the uniformed precursor to the KGB. The Chekists wore all black leather uniforms with red trim. They were something of an elite for their day; they got the best equipment, support weapons, and supporting elements.
12:02 AM
My Artillery Park
My Red Army now has some early artillery pieces to decimate the Whites, Poles and despicable capitalist tools with..
That's the Russian 76mm Putilov field gun, by all accounts a really good field piece.
Here's a historical photo:
The model doesn't seem as if it is to scale.
The smaller gun is the French 75mm direct fire piece.
That DOES appear to be in scale..
10:25 AM
On more technical notes:
The rules say that NOTHING in Red Actions! is simultaneous, except for MELEE and FIREFIGHTS. We could not find a satisfactory definition of a firefight anywhere in the text, so we *assume* this means an exchange of gunfire. I think (guess, really) that a firefight is initiated when one unit (platoon or company) fires upon another target. That target (guessing) activates and shoots back? Maybe?
An infantry or cavalry unit that is shot at by enemy at close range may elect to return fire simultaneously if they haven't already moved: this is your "firefight". (You can't force him to return fire.)
The other element that puzzled us was the MORALE CHECK RESULTS. Okay, we get "TERROR MARKERS"... they are a cumulative way of removing unit cohesion, and make the unit harder to fire and do other military things. And we get how to remove them, and how nasty it gets when you fail to do so. But what about "unit retires"?? Does that mean that the unit is in a state akin to "TERROR?" "Retiring" is only mentioned in one place (the combat results table charts) and not defined in the text. Is this equivelant to "keeping your heads down", but not being pinned or in TERROR?
Terror markers are removed by a rally from terror, which prevents any other actions that move. Yes it is easy, but it means that units that NEED to do something but have a couple of terror markers can be faced with a terrible dilemma. (I find it the most elegant part of the system. Some other people make the unit test to remove terror in house rules.)
Retire results are just that: the unit retires. 3" for infantry, 6" for cavalry. There is no other effect, other than burning an activation for that move, if the unit hasn't already been activated.
But come along to the Captain's group and we can chat there.
And now the plug: my web site has some stuff you might find interesting. Unofficial extra cards and army lists, including Russo-Polish war ones.
12:31 PM
Urrah Stalino!
Last night John Koprowski and I took RED ACTIONS! out for a spin at the Game Parlor in Chantilly VA. We were both newbies. It was.. an experience...
First Impressions: In general, we found the rules to be badly in need of an edit. Playing RA! at a con with a GM telling me what to do is one thing. Finding out how to run the game from what was in print was a whole other can of beans. It was hard to find a straight answer to almost any topic. We figured out movement well enough (it's on the card) and initiative (do a simple dice roll off, then Igo-Hugo for the rest of the turn, flipping the cool unit cards over to show that you have gone), and fire combat (generally speaking), but right about there we sort of glazed over.
The rules say that NOTHING in Red Actions! is simultaneous, except for MELEE and FIREFIGHTS. We could not find a satisfactory definition of a firefight anywhere in the text, so we *assume* this means an exchange of gunfire. I think (guess, really) that a firefight is initiated when one unit (platoon or company) fires upon another target. That target (guessing) activates and shoots back? Maybe?
I like that definition, as it can make the game less "gamey" and more realistic. If I see that a unit hasn't moved yet, I can fire on him and force him to reply, thus burning his activation and suppressing him in one turn. Far more interesting than a strict definition of Igo-Hugo. We'll seek clarification.
The other element that puzzled us was the MORALE CHECK RESULTS. Okay, we get "TERROR MARKERS"... they are a cumulative way of removing unit cohesion, and make the unit harder to fire and do other military things. And we get how to remove them, and how nasty it gets when you fail to do so. But what about "unit retires"?? Does that mean that the unit is in a state akin to "TERROR?" "Retiring" is only mentioned in one place (the combat results table charts) and not defined in the text. Is this equivelant to "keeping your heads down", but not being pinned or in TERROR?
Am I the only one who think the morale recovery is a tad.. lenient? I had artillery shells land amongst a Konarmiya unit (left in the photo) and they took two TERRORs and a PIN. With one morale check, zip! It's all gone? Seems nothing shy of miraculous to me, but maybe I'm doing something wrong here.
The most interesting lesson (for me) that came out of our experience was force balancing (which is very loosely described in the rules, but thankfully there is a unit chart with each force type that describes relative point values for each troop type. I really thought I had a nice force built up, but it turns out that Reds are kind of skimpy in the points department-- the quality just isn't there. I will need to be beefing up my army, comrade!
We only played a few turns for the sake of time and to basically give us an idea if our force was balanced or not (it wasn't). We plan to run a multiplayer game as our next test, after we get a few questions answered and possibly do some edits and build a handy cheat sheet.
I don't want to seem entirely negative, I certainly did NOT have a bad time. Once we got the hang of Fire Combat, Morale and Artillery, it went pretty fast. It was the exceptions and weird circumstances that bogged us down. I will seek clarification from The Perfect Captain and report back what I find.
9:45 AM
Events are Filling Up Fast!!!!
This is what I submitted to Hillsgrove, the event coordinator for TriaDCon
I am prepared to throw three events, one with a colleague:
1) The Wooden Sword
Period: Ancients
Players; 10
4 hours
Scale: 54mm
Rules: Gibsonsystem (modified) Steve Gibson home rules or (if I have to run it on a round table out with the boardgaming crowd) Avalon Hill's GLADIATOR.
Morituri te salutamus!
Come relive the glory and absurdity of Ancient Rome. Each player plays a single Roman Gladiator, armed and armored in a variety of ways. Fight your fellow gladiators or maddened beasts (always a good time) . Who knows? The winner may earn his freedom and get awarded the Rudis (wooden sword)!
2) Another Saturday at the Races
Period: Ancients, kinda
Scale: 20mm
3 hours
Rules: Fast Shuffle Combat Chariots (O'Hara)
Genre: racing.. with a twist
Throw out the history books and pop in that ancient VHS tape of BEN HUR, because that's as close as this game comes to history. Fast Shuffle Combat Chariots is a sped-up, card driven game of chariot racing and combat that is fed on playing cards and andreniline. Has the Emperor gone mad? Run a racing team in Ancient Rome-- and be ready for mayhem. Fast Shuffle Combat Chariots is a racing game that includes chariot to chariot combat (archery, grappling, hand to hand melee) yet greatly streamlines common features of other chariot racing games for faster play. Keep your whip and bow at the ready, and keep a watchful eye on the Terminatrix chariots!
3) Valor of the Poles
Period: 20th century, Interwar
Scale: 20mm
4 hours
Rules: RED ACTIONS
Genre: historical
In 1919-1920, the newly created Soviet state sought to 'export the Revolution by any means neccesary', especially in the direction of Germany and Poland. To everyone's suprise (including the Poles), the Polish Army managed to stop the Soviet juggernaut at the "Miracle of the Vistula". In this small skirmish, a small, polyglot Polish force (of varying quality) encounters an advancing Soviet force near a Polish village. Will the juggernaut roll over them? Or will we see a measure of the valor of the Poles?
General directions:
If there's not enough room on Saturday, I can run the gladiator game on a round table, no sweat.
I would GREATLY prefer running one of the other games on one day and the other on the OTHER DAY. I can't do 8 hours straight of GMing.. maybe ten years ago.
6:16 PM
Strelets increases my choices for Russian cavalry
Strelets, the Czech figure company, has released three great new Great War russian cavalry releases. I think they look great! I can see that I'm going to have to increase my Konarmiya by leaps and bounds!
Terek and Kuban Cossacks:
Note that some of these are repeats of the Crimean War figures.
Don Cossacks:
Russian Dragoons:
With the amount of great plastic figure kits coming out in 20mm/1:72, I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that lead ain't worth it anymore!
